THE  CHRONICLES 

OF  AMERICA  SERIES 

ALLEN  JOHNSON 

EDITOR 


B  M  372  Ifl? 


COLONIA 


ANDREWS 


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COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 


TEXTBOOK  EDITION 

THE  CHRONICLES 

OF  AMERICA  SERIES 

ALLEN  JOHNSON 

EDITOR 

GERHARD    R.   LOMER 

CHARLES   W.   JEFFERYS 

ASSISTANT  EDITORS 


COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 


A   CHRONICLE   OF 

AMERICAN  LIFE  IN   THE 

REIGN   OF  THE   GEORGES 

BY  CHARLES   M.    ANDREWS 


NEW    HAVEN:    YALE    UNIVERSITY    PRESS 

TORONTO:    GLASGOW,    BROOK    &    CO. 

LONDON:    HUMPHREY    MILFORD 

OXFORD     UNIVERSITY     PRESS 


Copyright,  1919,  by  Yale  University  Press 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


CONTENTS 

3.    THE  LAND  AND   THE  PEOPLE  Page      1 

II.    TOWN  AND   COUNTRY  "     23 

III.  COLONIAL  HOUSES  "     45 

IV.  HABILIMENTS  AND   HABITS  "     70 
V.    EVERYDAY  NEEDS   AND   DIVERSIONS            "     96 

VI.     THE  INTELLECTUAL  LIFE  "   130 

VII.    THE   CURE  OF  SOULS  "   161 

VIII.    THE  PROBLEM  OF  LABOR  "  178 

IX.     COLONIAL  TRAVEL  "  204 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE  "  239 

INDEX  -  245 


vii 


COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 
CHAPTER  I 

THE    LAND    AND    THE    PEOPLE 

THE  restless  and  courageous  Englishmen  who  fared 
across  the  sea  in  the  seventeenth  century,  facing 
danger  and  death  in  their  search  for  free  homes  in 
the  wilderness,  little  dreamed  that  out  of  their 
adventure  and  toil  there  would  rise  in  time  a  great 
republic  and  a  new  order  of  human  society.  There 
was  nothing  to  indicate  that  the  settlements  along 
the  seaboard,  occupying  the  narrow  strip  of  land 
between  the  ocean  and  the  mountain  ranges,  would 
eventually  grow  into  a  mighty  union  of  states  that 
would  be  called  "the  melting-pot  of  the  world." 
The  elements  of  that  great  amalgam  of  peoples,  it 
is  true,  began  to  be  gathered  before  the  close  of  the 
colonial  era;  but  the  process  of  fusion  made  little 
progress  during  the  years  of  dependence  under  the 


«  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

British  Crown.  The  settlements  of  the  seventeenth 
century  were  widely  scattered,  separated  by  dense 
forests  and  broad  rivers;  and  the  colonists  were 
busy  with  their  task  of  overcoming  the  obstacles 
that  confronted  them  in  a  primeval  land.  Even 
by  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century  there 
was  little  intercolonial  communication  to  make 
the  colonies  acquainted  with  one  another;  and  the 
thousands  of  immigrants,  arriving  yearly  from 
the  Old  World  and  adding  new  varieties  to  the 
race  types  already  present,  rendered  assimilation 
more  difficult. 

The  entire  colonial  period  was  marked  by  shift- 
ing and  unsettled  conditions.  The  older  colonies 
—  Virginia,  New  England,  Maryland,  and  New 
York  —  were  undergoing  changes  in  ideas  and  in- 
stitutions. The  Jerseys  and  the  Carolinas  were 
long  under  the  control  of  absent  and  inefficient 
proprietors  before  they  finally  passed  under  the 
rule  of  the  Crown.  Pennsylvania,  the  last  to  be 
founded  except  Georgia,  and  the  seat  of  a  religious 
experiment  in  a  City  of  Brotherly  Love,  was  wres- 
tling with  the  difficult  task  of  combining  high  ideals 
with  the  ordinary  frailties  of  human  nature.  In  all 
these  colonies  the  details  of  political  organization 
and  the  available  means  of  making  a  living  were 


THE  LAND  AND  THE  PEOPLE  3 

developed  but  slowly.  England,  too,  the  sovereign 
power  across  the  sea,  whose  influence  affected  at 
every  important  point  the  course  of  colonial  his- 
tory, was  late  in  defining  and  putting  into  practice 
her  policy  toward  her  American  possessions.  Not 
until  after  the  turmoil  of  the  war  which  ended  with 
the  Treaty  of  Utrecht  (1713)  do  we  begin  to  find  a 
state  of  colonial  society  sufficiently  at  rest  to  admit 
of  a  satisfactory  review.  The  half  century  from 
1713  to  1763  is  the  period  during  which  the  life  of 
the  colonists  attained  its  highest  level  of  stability 
and  regularity,  and  to  this  period,  the  training 
time  of  those  who  were  to  make  the  Revolution, 
we  shall  chiefly  direct  our  attention.  It  will  be  an 
advantage,  however,  to  preface  a  consideration  of 
colonial  life  with  a  reference  to  the  topography  of 
the  country  and  a  review  of  the  racial  elements 
which  made  up  its  composite  population. 

The  territory  occupied  by  the  colonists  stretched 
along  the  American  coast  from  Nova  Scotia  to 
Georgia.  The  earliest  settlements  lay  near  the 
ocean,  but  in  some  cases  extended  inland  for 
considerable  distances  along  the  more  important 
rivers.  Behind  this  settled  area,  toward  the  foot- 
hills of  the  mountains,  lay  the  back  country,  which 
after  1730  received  immigrants  in  large  numbers. 


4  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

Except  for  settlements  and  outlying  clearings,  the 
colonial  area,  even  near  the  sea,  was  densely  cov- 
ered with  forests  and  contained  to  the  end  of  this 
period  many  wild  and  desolate  tracts  of  dismal 
swamp,  drifting  sand,  and  tangled  jungle  destined 
to  remain  for  decades  regions  of  mystery  and  fear, 
the  resort  of  only  fowl  and  beast,  and  the  occa- 
sional refuge  of  criminals  and  outlaws.  Gradually, 
as  the  years  passed,  the  wilderness  disappeared 
before  the  march  of  man,  the  wooded  and  rocky 
surface  was  transformed  into  fertile  arable  fields 
and  pasture,  the  old  settlements  widened,  and  new 
settlements  appeared.  The  number  of  colonists 
increased,  and  the  pioneers  steadily  pushed  back 
the  frontier,  setting  up  towns  and  laying  out  farms 
and  plantations,  rearing  families,  warring  with  the 
Indians  and  trading  with  them  for  furs,  and  turn- 
ing to  the  best  account  the  advantages  that  a 
bountiful  though  exacting  nature  furnished  ready 
to  their  hand. 

To  the  west  of  the  colonists  lay  the  boundless 
wilderness;  on  the  east  lay  the  equally  vast  ocean, 
the  great  highway  of  communication  with  the 
civilization  of  the  Old  World  to  which  they  still 
instinctively  turned.  If  the  land  furnished  homes 
and  subsistence  from  agriculture,  the  sea,  while 


THE  LAND  AND  THE  PEOPLE  5 

also  furnishing  food,  afforded  opportunities  for 
commerce  and  travel.  Only  by  water,  for  the  mosf 
part,  could  the  colonists  reach  the  markets  to  sell 
their  fish,  furs,  and  agricultural  produce  and  to 
purchase  those  necessary  articles  of  food,  dress, 
and  equipment  which  they  could  neither  raise  nor 
manufacture  among  themselves.  Sometimes  they 
trafficked  in  short  voyages  to  neighboring  colonies, 
and  sometimes  they  sailed  on  longer  voyages  to 
England,  the  Continent,  the  Wine  Islands,  Africa, 
the  West  Indies,  and  the  Spanish  Main.  Though 
the  land  and  its  staples  often  shaped  the  destiny 
of  individual  colonies,  the  most  important  single 
factor  in  bringing  wealth  and  opportunity  to  the 
colonies  as  a  whole  was  the  sea.  Those  who  jour- 
neyed upon  the  Atlantic  thought  as  little  of  cross- 
ing the  water  as  they  did  of  traversing  the  land, 
and  travelers  took  ship  for  England  and  the  WTest 
Indies  with  less  hesitation  than  they  had  in  riding 
on  horseback  or  in  chaises  over  dangerous  and 
lonely  roads. 

The  colonial  domain  thus  comprised  regions 
which  differed  conspicuously  from  one  another  in 
climate,  soil,  and  economic  opportunity.  But  the 
races  which  came  to  dwell  in  these  new  tands  were 
no  less  diverse  than  the  country.  At  the  close  of 


6  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

the  period  here  under  review,  that  is,  in  1763,  the 
total  white  population  of  the  region  from  Maine  to 
Georgia  was  not  far  from  1,250,000.  It  is  esti- 
mated that  something  more  than  a  third  of  the 
inhabitants  were  newcomers,  not  of  the  stock  of 
the  original  settlers.  These  newcomers  were  chiefly 
French,  German,  and  Scotch-Irish.  There  were 
also  in  the  colonies  about  230,000  negroes,  free 
and  slave,  29,000  in  the  Middle  Colonies,  16,000 
in  New  England,  and  the  remainder  in  the  South. 
The  influence  of  the  non-English  newcomers  on 
colonial  life  was  less  than  their  numbers  might  sug- 
gest. The  Scotch-Irish  belonged  rather  to  the  back 
country  than  to  the  older  settlements  and  —  ex- 
cept in  Pennsylvania,  where  they  were  something 
of  a  factor  in  politics  —  were  not  yet  in  the  public 
arena.  Their  turn  was  to  come  later  in  the  Revo- 
lution and  in  the  westward  movement.  The  same 
may  be  said  of  the  Germans.  Not  many  Germans 
in  the  colonies  became  as  well  known  as  John  Peter 
Zenger,  whose  name  is  indissolubly  associated  with 
the  liberty  of  the  press  in  America.  The  Germans, 
however,  as  farmers  contributed  greatly  to  the 
prosperity  of  the  communities  where  they  culti- 
vated their  lands.  Huguenots,  Jews,  and  High- 
landers remained  in  numbers  near  the  coast  and 


THE  LAND  AND  THE  PEOPLE  7 

took  part  in  the  social,  political,  and  commercial 
life  of  the  older  communities.  The  Huguenots  and 
the  Highlanders  became  influential  planters,  mer- 
chants, and  holders  of  political  office,  men  of  enter- 
prise and  standing.  The  Jews  on  the  other  hand 
had  no  social  or  political  privileges  and  made  their 
mark  principally  in  the  field  of  commerce  and  trade. 
Northernmost  of  the  regions  over  which  these 
many  races  were  scattered  lay  New  England,  ex- 
tending from  the  wilds  of  Maine  through  a  beauti- 
ful rolling  country  of  green  fields  and  tree-clad 
slopes,  to  the  rocky  environs  of  the  White  Moun- 
tains, the  Berkshires,  and  the  Litchfield  Hills. 
Here,  according  to  the  humor  of  a  later  day,  the 
sheep's  noses  were  sharpened  for  cropping  the 
grass  between  the  stones,  and  the  corn  was  shot  in- 
to the  unyielding  ground  with  a  gun.  Central  and 
eastern  New  England  was  a  region  of  low  mountain 
ranges  and  fairly  wide  valleys,  of  many  rivers  and 
excellent  harbors  —  a  land  admirably  adapted  to  a 
system  of  intensive  farming  and  husbandry.  The 
variety  of  its  staples  was  matched  by  the  diversity 
of  the  occupations  of  its  people.  Fishing,  agricul- 
ture, household  manufactures,  and  trade  kept  the 
New  Englander  along  the  coast  busy  and  made 
him  shrewd,  persistent,  and  progressive.  He  was 


8  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

unprogressive  and  slow  in  the  more  isolated  towns 
and  villages,  where  the  routine  of  the  farm  ab- 
sorbed the  greater  part  of  his  time  and  attention. 

In  1730  the  New  Englanders  numbered,  roughly, 
275,000;  in  1760,  425,000  or  about  a  third  of  the 
entire  white  population  of  the  thirteen  colonies, 
and  at  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary  War,  800,000. 
Somewhat  less  than  half  of  these  were  under  the 
jurisdiction  of  Massachusetts.  Connecticut  stood 
second  in  size  and  Rhode  Island  and  New  Hamp- 
shire were  nearly  equal.  The  New  Englanders 
lived  in  compact  communities  along  the  coast  and 
up  the  river  valleys  wherever  land  and  opportunity 
offered,  and  in  self-governing  towns  and  cities,  of 
which  Boston,  with  about  twenty  thousand  in- 
habitants, was  by  far  the  largest. l 

The  people  of  New  England  were  mainly  of  Eng- 
lish stock,  with  but  a  small  mixture  of  foreign  ele- 
ments. The  colony  of  Connecticut  was  the  most 
homogeneous  on  the  Atlantic  seaboard.  In  parts 
of  Massachusetts,  New  Hampshire,  and  Maine, 

T  Boston  outrivaled  in  size  every  city  in  America  except  possibly 
Philadelphia,  and  as  to  which  of  the  two  was  the  larger  is  uncertain. 
Birket  and  Goelet,  both  writing  in  1750,  give  diametrically  opposite 
opinions  on  this  point.  Birket  says  that  Philadelphia  "appeared  to  be 
the  largest  city  in  our  America,"  while  Goelet  calls  Boston  "the 
largest  town  upon  the  Continent." 


THE  LAND  AND  THE  PEOPLE  9 

hundreds  of  Scotch-Irish  appeared  between  1700 
and  1750,  some  of  whom  eventually  drifted  down 
into  Connecticut,  where  they  formed  a  trifling 
and  inconspicuous  part  of  the  population.  These 
Scotch-Irish,  who  were  not  Irish  at  all  except  that 
they  came  from  the  north  of  Ireland,  had  much 
less  influence  in  New  England  than  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, or  in  the  back  country  of  the  South,  where 
their  numbers  were  five  times  as  large  as  in  the 
North  and  where  their  work  as  frontier  pioneers 
was  far  more  conspicuous.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Huguenots,  fleeing  from  France  after  the  revoca- 
tion of  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  in  1685,  though  never 
as  numerous  as  the  Scotch-Irish,  nor  ever  as  prom- 
inent as  frontiersmen  or  founders  of  towns,  had  the 
gift  of  easy  adaptation  to  the  life  of  the  older  com- 
munities and  remained  in  the  urban  centers,  where 
they  soon  vied  with  the  English  as  leaders  in  politi- 
cal and  mercantile  life.  The  names  of  Bowdoin, 
Cabot,  Faneuil,  Bernon,  Oliver,  and  Revere  add 
luster  to  the  history  of  New  England,  while  others 
of  less  note  attained  local  success  as  artisans  and 
tradesmen.  The  Jews,  though  their  peers  in  busi- 
ness, were  nowhere  their  serious  rivals  except  in 
Newport.  In  this  town,  about  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  Jews  congregated.  They  came 


10  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

either  directly  from  Spain  or  from  Portugal  by  way 
of  Brazil  and  the  West  Indies,  and  gave  to  that 
growing  Rhode  Island  seaport  a  distinctly  com- 
mercial character.  The  only  other  foreigners  in 
New  England  were  a  number  of  Dutch,  who  were 
not  really  "foreigners,"  as  they  came  of  the  origi- 
nal settlers  of  New  Netherland,  having  moved 
eastward  from  the  towns  and  manors  along  the 
Hudson.  Many  negroes  and  mulattoes  served  as 
farm  hands  and  domestic  servants,  chiefly  in  or 
near  the  seaports  dealing  with  the  South  or  with 
the  West  Indies ;  and  a  few  thousand  Indians,  more 
often  on  reservations  than  in  the  households  or 
on  the  farms  of  the  white  men,  survived  in  ever 
dwindling  remnants  of  their  former  tribes. 

New  York  and  Pennsylvania,  though  they  were 
closely  akin  to  New  England  in  climate  and  staple 
products,  bore  little  resemblance  to  that  Puritan 
world  in  the  racial  factors  of  their  population  or 
the  topographical  features  of  their  land.  New 
England  had  a  single  dominant  stock  in  a  land  of 
many  small  communities  and  independent  seaports. 
New  York  and  Pennsylvania,  on  the  other  hand, 
with  their  satellite  neighbors,  the  Jerseys  and  Dela- 
ware, contained  a  kaleidoscopic  collection  of  people 
of  different  bloods  and  religions.  Their  life  was 


THE  LAND  AND  THE  PEOPLE  11 

also  less  diversified  and  scattered,  for  it  was  closely 
associated  with  the  marts  of  New  York  and  Phila- 
delphia. Each  of  these  cities  was  situated  on  a 
superb  body  of  water.  The  Hudson  and  the  Dela- 
ware, like  the  Nile  in  Egypt,  shaped  to  no  incon- 
siderable extent  the  prosperity  of  the  regions 
through  which  they  flowed.  But  between  these 
two  cities  there  were  noteworthy  differences.  New 
York  was  backward  in  colonial  times,  while  Phila- 
delphia, though  les?  favorably  situated,  because 
the  Delaware  was  a  difficult  stream  for  sailing 
vessels  to  navigate,  leaped  into  commercial  prom- 
inence within  a  decade  of  its  foundation. 

The  differences  between  the  provinces  in  which 
these  cities  lay  is  no  less  striking.  Though  possess- 
ing magnificent  water  facilities,  the  province  of 
New  York  had  as  yet  a  very  restricted  territorial 
area,  much  of  which  was  mountainous.  Its  broad 
interior,  drained  by  the  Hudson  and  Mohawk  riv- 
ers, was  of  boundless  promise  for  the  future  but  of 
little  immediate  usefulness  except  as  a  source  of 
furs  and  peltry,  while  the  whole  lay  bottled  up,  as 
it  were,  and  inaccessible  to  harbor  and  ocean,  ex- 
cept through  a  narrow  neck  of  land  of  which  the 
island  of  Ma  nhattan  was  the  terminus .  The  people 
of  the  province  —  English,  Dutch,  and  French,  with 


12  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

a  sprinkling  of  other  nationalities  —  were  much 
given  to  factional  quarreling,  and  their  politi- 
cal development  was  slow,  for  until  1691  they  had 
no  permanent  popular  assembly.  Furthermore, 
the  situation  of  the  territory  along  the  chief 
waterway  from  Canada  of  necessity  exposed  the 
province  to  constant  French  attack  from  the  north 
and  added  to  the  distractions  of  politics  the  heavy 
burden  of  defense  and  the  responsibility  for  peace 
with  the  Six  Nations,  whose  alliance  was  so  es- 
sential to  English  success.  The  population  of 
the  province  nevertheless  increased.  In  1730  it 
was  only  50,000;  thirty  years  later  it  was  more 
than  100,000;  and,  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Revo- 
lution, 190,000.  But  in  colonial  times  it  always 
lacked  cohesion  and  unity,  owing  to  racial  divi- 
sions and  social  distinctions  and  to  its  strangely 
shaped  territory. 

Philadelphia  was  the  center  of  the  far  more  com- 
pact colony  of  Pennsylvania  and  the  seat  of  a  more 
united,  powerful,  and  dominant  political  party. 
The  Quakers  on  principle  avoided  war  and  culti- 
vated as  far  as  possible  the  arts  and  advantages 
of  peace.  Though  there  was  quarreling  enough  in 
the  Legislature  and  a  great  deal  of  jockeying  and 
rowdiness  at  elections,  the  stability  and  prosperity 


THE  LAND  AND  THE  PEOPLE  13 

of  the  province  were  but  little  impaired.  The  city 
lay  along  the  bank  of  a  great  river,  in  the  midst  of 
a  wide,  fertile  agricultural  country  which  included 
West  Jersey  and  Delaware  and  which  was  in- 
habited by  people  of  many  races  and  many  creeds, 
all  tilling  the  soil  and  contributing  to  the  pros- 
perity of  the  merchant  class.  These  merchants, 
with  their  dingy  countinghouses  and  stores  near 
the  water-front  had  their  correspondents  all  over 
the  world,  their  ships  in  every  available  market. 
One  of  them,  Robert  Morris,  boasted  that  he 
Downed  more  ships  than  any  other  man  in  Amer- 
ica." Many  of  these  merchants  were  possessed  of 
large  wealth  and  were  the  owners  of  fine  country 
houses,  as  beautiful  as  any  in  the  North,  adorned 
with  the  best  that  the  world  could  offer.  The  colo- 
nial mayors  of  Philadelphia,  like  those  of  London, 
were  taken  as  a  rule  from  the  mercantile  class. 

The  population  of  Pennsylvania  increased  from 
50,000  in  1730  to  more  than  200,000  in  1763  —  due 
in  largest  part  to  the  thousands  of  Scotch-Irish 
and  Germans  who,  from  1718  to  1750,  poured  into 
the  colony.  The  bulk  of  the  Scotch-Irish,  urged 
westward  by  the  proprietary  government,  which 
wanted  to  get  rid  of  them,  pushed  rapidly  into  the 
region  of  the  Susquehanna.  The  Germans  usually 


14  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

settled  in  or  near  the  old  counties,  where  they  could 
devote  themselves  to  the  cultivation  of  the  soil  and 
to  the  maintenance  of  their  many  peculiarities  of 
life  and  faith,  content  to  take  little  part  in  politics, 
though  inclined  to  uphold  the  Quakers  in  their 
quarrels  with  the  proprietors.  Both  the  Scotch- 
Irish  and  the  Germans  moved  onward  as  oppor- 
tunity offered,  journeying  southwest  through  the 
uplands  of  Maryland  and  Virginia,  west  into  the 
Juniata  region,  and  northwest  along  the  west 
branch  of  the  Susquehanna,  taking  up  lands  and 
laying  out  farms.  In  this  forward  movement  the 
Scotch-Irish  were  usually  in  advance,  since  their 
less  developed  instinct  for  thrift  and  permanence 
often  led  them  to  sell  their  holdings  to  the  on- 
coming Germans  and  to  trek  to  the  edge  and  over 
the  edge  of  the  western  frontier.  The  life  of  these 
Germans  —  Moravians,  Mennonites,  Schwenk- 
f elders,  Dunkards,  and  others  —  was  marked  by 
simplicity,  docility,  mystical  faith,  and  rigid 
economy;  that  of  the  Scotch-Irish  by  adventure, 
conflict,  and  suffering.  Before  the  land  seekers 
of  the  southern  tidewater  had  reached  the  back 
country,  the  Scotch-Irish  and  the  Germans  had  en- 
tered the  mountain  valleys  of  Maryland,  Virginia, 
and  the  Carolinas,  and  had  developed  a  separate 


THE  LAND  AND  THE  PEOPLE  15 

agricultural  and  industrial  life  of  their  own,  in- 
dependent of  the  tidewater  but  in  close  communi- 
cation with  the  regions  in  the  North  whence  they 
had  come. 

Beyond  the  southern  boundary  of  Pennsylvania 
—  famous  later  as  Mason  and  Dixon's  Line  —  lay 
two  groups  of  colonies  in  a  semitropical  zone  occu- 
pying the  tidewater  lowlands  about  the  Chesapeake 
and  the  great  rivers  and  sounds  of  the  southern 
coast.  These  lowlands  extended  as  far  back  as 
the  "fall  line,"  the  head  of  river  navigation,  which 
curved  from  the  present  city  of  Washington  through 
Fredericksburg,  Richmond,  and  Fayetteville  to  Au- 
gusta. Within  this  area  lay  five  colonies :  Maryland, 
Virginia,  the  two  Carolinas,  and  Georgia. 

In  1760  the  white  population  of  the  Southern 
Colonies  was  as  follows:  Maryland,  107,000;  Vir- 
ginia, 200,000;  North  Carolina,  135,000;  South 
Carolina,  40,000;  and  Georgia,  6000.  Of  these 
colonies  the  last  two  had  a  proportion  of  blacks 
to  whites  vastly  greater  than  the  others.  Al- 
though the  Southern  Colonies  received  at  one  time 
or  another  an  accession  of  population  from  nearly 
every  country  of  central  and  western  Europe,  they 
were  in  the  main  free  from  any  large  admixture 
of  foreign  stocks.  Until  after  1730  Maryland  had 


16  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

few  foreigners.  At  that  time  a  few  Germans  crept 
down  from  Pennsylvania  and  others  came  in  by 
way  of  the  Virginia  Capes,  some  of  whom  found 
lodgment  in  Baltimore  and  in  1758  erected  a  Ger- 
man church  there.  Virginia  had  at  the  beginning 
a  few  foreign  artisans;  later  a  number  of  Dutch 
and  Germans,  probably  from  New  Amsterdam, 
occupied  lands  on  the  Eastern  Shore;  and  at  odd 
times  Portuguese  Jews  from  Brazil  found  refuge 
under  its  protection.  But  the  only  groups  of  for- 
eigners in  the  colony  were  the  Palatine  Germans 
at  Germanna,  the  French  Huguenots  at  Manakin- 
town,  and  a  small  body  of  poor  but  industrious 
Swiss  at  Mattapony.  The  dominant  stock  was 
English.  On  Albemarle  Sound,  in  North  Carolina, 
there  were  no  foreigners,  so  far  as  can  be  ascer- 
tained. But  after  1700  many  Swiss  and  Palatine 
Germans  toiled  wearily  overland  from  Virginia  and 
founded  New  Bern;  Huguenots  settled  on  thePam- 
lico,  German  Moravians  and  Scotch-Irish  poured 
into  the  back  country;  and  Celtic  Highlanders 
came  up  the  Cape  Fear  and  settled  at  Cross  Creek 
(Fayetteville)  and  eventually  became  influential 
citizens  of  the  colony. 

South  Carolina  had  a  population  which  was  a 
composite  of  English,  Huguenots,  and  Germans. 


THE  LAND  AND  THE  PEOPLE  17 

The  French  element  in  the  coast  counties,  how- 
ever, numbered  scarcely  more  than  two  per  cent 
of  the  whole,  and  the  Germans  —  like  the  Swiss 
in  the  same  colony  —  were  isolated  and  politi- 
cally unimportant.  Throughout  the  period  the 
center  of  the  social  and  political  life  of  South  Caro- 
lina was  at  Charleston.  Georgia  had  very  few  for- 
eigners though  she  stood  unique  in  possessing  a 
small  settlement  of  Salzburgers  or  Austrian  Ger- 
mans, while  East  Florida  could  boast  of  a  settle- 
ment of  Greeks. 

Here  and  there  among  the  colonies  as  a  whole 
were  a  few  Italians,  employed  as  gardeners,  bota- 
nists, or  miniature  painters;  a  few  hundred  Irish- 
men, perhaps,  though  most  of  the  Irish  Celts  began 
their  careers  in  America  as  indentured  servants; 
and  once  in  a  while  a  Czech  or  Bohemian,  though 
the  identification  is  often  doubtful.  There  were 
Irish  and  Welsh  Quakers  in  Pennsylvania,  and  a 
few  Danes  are  said  to  have  come  into  New  Hamp- 
shire with  imported  Danish  cattle.  Following  the 
Acadian  Expulsion  (1755),  the  French  Neutrals  or 
Acadians  were  distributed  £,mong  the  cities  from 
Portsmouth  to  Savannah.  These  exiles  presented 
a  pathetic  picture  of  desolation  and  despair.  They 
were  undesired,  and  were  frequently  charged  with 


18  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

crimes  and  misdemeanors  by  those  who  wished  to 
get  rid  of  them. 

In  time  the  colonists  of  the  southern  groups, 
with  Virginians  in  the  lead,  pushed  their  settled 
area  across  the  "fall  line"  and  cut  slowly  and  with 
great  labor  into  the  dense  forests.  Here  they  es 
tablished  farms  and  plantations  and  began  the 
growing  of  wheat,  a  staple  destined  to  become  a 
dangerous  competitor  of  the  tobacco  produced  on 
lower  levels.  The  upcountry  was  much  healthier 
than  the  lowland  and  combined  forest,  pasture, 
and  a  wonderfully  fertile  arable  soil  with  good 
water  facilities  and  an  equable  climate.  What  had 
been  in  the  seventeenth  century  but  a  camping 
ground  for  warriors,  traders,  and  herders,  became 
in  the  eighteenth  century  the  seat  of  busy  settle- 
ment and  agriculture. 

As  the  frontier  was  gradually  pushed  back  by 
the  movement  of  settlers  from  the  coast,  the  newly 
won  regions  came  under  the  control  of  the  coast 
dwellers  and  reproduced  much  of  the  life  of  the 
older  settlements.  But  such  was  not  the  case  in 
Maryland  nor  in  the  far  mountain  valleys  of  Vir- 
ginia and  North  Carolina.  These  regions  did  not 
receive  their  pioneers  from  the  tidewater  settle- 
ments. Central  Maryland  remained  a  wilderness 


THE  LAND  AND  THE  PEOPLE  19 

until  the  Germans  from  Pennsylvania,  carrying 
their  goods  in  wagons  and  driving  their  cattle 
before  them,  entered  the  territory,  took  up  tenan- 
cies under  the  land  speculators  of  Annapolis,  and 
began  an  era  of  small  farms  and  diversified  staples 
essentially  different  from  the  plantation  life  of  the 
Chesapeake.  As  these  pioneers  passed  on,  they 
found  homes  along  the  Blue  Ridge  and  in  the  Shen- 
andoah  and  Yadkin  valleys.  And  as  the  stream 
of  homeseekers  advanced  southward,  following  the 
line  of  the  mountains,  farther  and  farther  away 
from  the  coast  and  the  older  civilization,  there 
arose  a  new  community  of  American  settlers  living 
on  small  farms  and  tenancies  and  imbued  with 
all  the  individualistic  notions  characteristic  of  the 
dweller  on  the  frontier. 

While  the  Virginians  were  clearing  away  the 
forests  of  their  own  back  country  and  the  Germans 
and  Scotch-Irish,  with  the  help  of  occasional  pio- 
neers from  the  coast,  were  filling  the  slopes  and 
valleys  of  the  lower  Appalachian  ranges  with  the 
hum  and  bustle  of  a  frontier  civilization,  the  old 
settlers  of  the  Carolinas  and  Georgia  remained 
little  influenced  by  the  call  of  the  West.  The  old 
Albemarle  settlement  of  North  Carolina,  founded 
by  wanderers  from  Virginia  in  1653,  remained  a 


20  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

comparatively  poor  and  struggling  community. 
It  received  but  few  additions  by  sea  because  of 
fche  sand-choked  inlets  and  the  fearful  reputation 
of  Cape  Hatteras  as  a  rendezvous  with  death  for 
those  brave  enough  to  dare  its  storms  and  treacher- 
ous currents.  On  the  other  hand,  these  settlen 
ventured  but  short  distances  inland  because  of  the 
no  less  terrible  menace  of  the  fighting  Tuscarora 
Indians,  who  ranged  over  the  region  from  seaboard 
to  upland  and  carried  terror  to  the  hearts  of  even 
the  boldest  pioneers.  Not  until  after  the  horrible 
massacre  of  1711,  from  the  effects  of  which  the  Al- 
bemarle  settlement  never  fully  recovered  in  colo- 
nial times,  was  an  effort  made  to  end  the  Tuscarora 
danger  and  to  open  up  the  lower  and  central  part  of 
the  colony  to  occupation  and  settlement. 

The  assistance  which  South  Carolina  gave  to  her 
sister  colony  in  revenging  itself  on  the  Tuscaroras 
brought  to  the  knowledge  of  the  leading  men  of 
Charleston  the  wonderful  beauty  and  fertility  of 
the  land  around  the  Cape  Fear  River  and  led  to  the 
founding  of  the  second  or  southern  settlement  in 
North  Carolina,  first  at  Brunswick  about  1725  and 
later  at  Wilmington,  a  town  which  eventually  be- 
came the  leading  seat  of  the  colony.  But  even  the 
Cape  Fear  settlers,  though  laying  out  plantations 


THE  LAND  AND  THE  PEOPLE  21 

along  the  river  and  its  branches,  never  passed 
farther  inland  than  the  "fall  line"  at  Cross  Creek 
(Fayetteville),  the  head  of  navigation  on  the  river. 
Throughout  the  period  they  remained  more  closely 
in  touch  with  their  southern  neighbors  of  South 
Carolina  than  with  those  of  the  older  region  to 
the  northward  and  not  only  received  from  them 
many  accessions  of  numbers  but  also  entered  into 
frequent  intercourse  of  a  social  and  commercial 
nature.  Though  the  Cape  Fear  planters  raised 
neither  rice  nor  indigo,  as  did  those  of  South  Caro- 
lina and  Georgia,  they  were  similar  to  them  in 
manners,  customs,  and  habits  of  life. 

Just  as  the  men  of  the  Cape  Fear  region  confined 
their  activities  to  the  lower  reaches  of  the  river  and 
its  tributaries,  so  the  settlers  to  the  southward  - 
at  Georgetown,  Charleston,  and  Savannah  - 
moved  but  short  distances  back  from  the  coast 
during  the  colonial  period.  At  first  there  were  only 
a  few  plantations  of  South  Carolina  which  lay  as 
much  as  seventy  miles  inland,  and  though  after 
1760  certain  merchants  of  Charleston  took  up  ex- 
tensive grants  of  land  on  the  upper  waters  of  the 
Savannah  River,  the  only  people  in  these  colonies 
who  gave  real  evidence  of  the  pioneer  instinct  were 
the  Germans.  They  entered  South  Carolina  about 


22  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

1735,  pushed  up  the  rivers  into  the  region  of 
Orangeburg  and  Amelia  townships,  and  filled  that 
frontier  section  with  an  industrious  people  who 
cultivated  wheat,  rye,  and  barley,  entered  into 
friendly  relations  with  the  Cherokee  Indians,  and 
lived  in  great  harmony  among  themselves.  As 
they  increased  in  numbers  and  widened  their  area 
of  occupation,  some  of  them,  by  coming  into  touch 
with  the  Scotch-Irish  who  had  pushed  in  from  the 
north,  eventually  linked  the  back  country  civiliza- 
tion to  that  of  the  coast. 

Such  in  broad  perspective  was  the  land  of  our 
colonial  forefathers  and  such  were  the  people  who 
dwelt  in  it.  The  picture,  when  looked  at  more 
closely,  has  interesting  features  and  a  wealth  of 
local  color.  Perhaps  the  most  immediately  strik- 
ing, because  one  of  the  earliest  and  most  funda- 
mental, is  the  contrast  between  town  and  country. 


CHAPTER  II 

TOWN   AND    COUNTRY 

THE  tilling  of  the  soil  absorbed  the  energies  of 
not  less  than  nine-tenths  of  the  colonial  population. 
Even  those  who  by  occupation  were  sailors,  fisher- 
men, fur  traders,  or  merchants  often  gave  a  part  of 
their  time  to  the  cultivation  of  farms  or  plantations. 
Land  hunger  was  the  master  passion  which  brought 
the  men  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  cen- 
turies across  the  sea  and  lured  them  on  to  the 
frontier.  Where  hundreds  sought  for  freedom  of 
worship  and  release  from  political  oppression,  thou- 
sands saw  in  the  great  unoccupied  lands  of  the 
New  World  a  chance  to  make  a  living  and  to  es- 
cape from  their  landlords  at  home.  To  obtain  a 
freehold  in  America  was,  as  Thomas  Hutchinson 
once  wrote  of  New  England,  the  "ruling  purpose" 
which  sent  colonial  sons  with  their  cattle  and  be- 
longings to  some  distant  frontier  township,  where 
they  would  thrust  back  the  wilderness  and  create 

23 


£4  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

a  new  community.  Throughout  the  whole  of  the 
colonial  period  this  migration  westward  in  quest 
of  land,  whether  overseas  or  through  the  wilder- 
ness, whether  from  New  England  or  Old  England 
or  the  Continent,  continued  at  an  accelerating  pace. 
The  Revolutionary  troubles,  of  course,  brought  it 
temporarily  to  a  standstill. 

In  New  England  —  outside  of  New  Hampshire, 
where  the  Allen  family  had  a  claim  to  the  soil  that 
made  the  people  of  that  colony  a  great  deal  of 
trouble  —  every  individual  was  his  own  proprietor, 
the  supreme  and  independent  lord  of  the  acres  he 
tilled.  But  elsewhere  the  ultimate  title  to  the  soil 
lay  in  the  hands  of  the  King  or  of  such  great  pro- 
prietors as  the  Baltimores  and  the  Penns,  to  whom 
grants  had  been  made  by  the  Crown.  The  colonist 
who  obtained  land  from  King  or  proprietor  was 
expected  to  pay  a  small  quitrent  as  a  token  of  the 
higher  ownership.  The  quitrent  was  not  a  real 
rent,  proportionate  to  the  actual  value  of  the  acres 
held;  it  was  never  large  in  amount  nor  burdensome 
to  the  settler;  and  it  was  rarely  increased,  whether 
the  price  of  land  rose  or  fell.  The  colonists  never 
liked  the  quitrent,  however,  and  in  many  instances 
resolutely  refused  to  pay  it,  so  that  it  became  in 
time  a  cause  of  friction  and  a  source  of  discontent 


TOWN  AND  COUNTRY  25 

which  played  some  part  in  arousing  in  America  the 
desire  for  independence.  Once  when  the  people  of 
North  Carolina  complained  of  the  way  their  lands 
were  doled  out,  the  Governor  replied  that  if  they 
did  not  like  the  conditions  they  could  give  up  their 
lands,  which  after  all  were  the  King's  and  not  theirs. 
It  was  a  small  thing,  this  quitrent,  but  it  touched 
men's  daily  lives  a  thousand  times  more  often  than 
did  some  of  the  larger  grievances  to  which  the 
Revolution  has  been  ascribed. 

The  towns  of  New  England  were  compact  little 
communities,  favorably  situated  by  sea  or  river, 
and  their  inhabitants  were  given  over  in  the  main 
to  the  pursuit  of  agriculture.  Even  many  of  the 
seaports  and  fishing  villages  were  occupied  by  a 
folk  as  familiar  with  the  plow  as  with  the  ware- 
house, the  wharf,  or  the  fishing  smack,  and  accus- 
tomed to  supply  their  sloops  and  schooners  with 
the  produce  of  their  own  and  their  neighbors'  acres. 
Life  in  the  towns  was  one  of  incessant  activity. 
The  New  Englander's  house,  with  its  barns,  out- 
buildings, kitchen  garden,  and  back  lot,  fronted 
the  village  street,  while  near  at  hand  were  the 
meetinghouse  and  schoolhouse,  pillories,  stocks, 
and  signpost,  all  objects  of  constant  interest  and 
frequent  concern.  Beyond  this  clustered  group  of 


26  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

houses  stretched  the  outlying  arable  land,  meadows, 
pastures,  and  woodland,  the  scene  of  the  villager's 
industry  and  the  source  of  his  livelihood.  Thence 
came  wheat  and  corn  for  his  gristmill,  hay  and  oats 
for  his  horses  and  cattle,  timber  for  his  sawmill, 
and  wood  for  the  huge  fireplace  which  warmed  his 
home.  The  lots  of  an  individual  owner  would  be 
scattered  in  several  divisions,  some  near  at  hand, 
to  be  reached  easily  on  foot,  others  two  or  more 
miles  distant,  involving  a  ride  on  horseback  or  by 
wagon.  While  most  of  the  New  Englanders  pre- 
ferred to  live  in  neighborly  fashion  near  together, 
some  built  their  houses  on  a  convenient  hillside  or 
fertile  upland  away  from  the  center.  Here  they 
set  up  "quarters"  or  "corners"  which  were  often 
destined  to  become  in  time  little  villages  by  them- 
selves, each  the  seat  of  a  cow  pound,  a  chapel,  and 
a  school.  Sometimes  these  little  centers  developed 
into  separate  ecclesiastical  societies  and  even  into 
independent  towns;  but  frequently  they  remained 
legally  a  part  of  the  original  church  and  township, 
and  the  residents  often  journeyed  many  miles  to 
take  part  in  town  meeting  or  to  join  in  the  social 
and  religious  life  of  the  older  community. 

The  New  Englander  who  viewed  for  the  first 
time  the  list  of  his  allotments  as  entered  in  the 


TOWN  AND  COUNTRY  27 

town  book  of  land  records  had  the  novel  sensation 
of  knowing  that  to  all  intents  and  purposes  they 
were  his  own  property,  subject  of  course  to  the  law 
of  the  colony,  which  he  himself  helped  to  make 
through  his  representatives  in  the  Assembly;  sub- 
ject, too,  more  remotely,  to  the  authority  of  the 
King  across  the  sea.  But  the  King  did  not  often 
bother  him.  He  could  do  with  his  land  much  as  he 
pleased :  sell  it  if  need  be,  leave  it  to  his  children  by 
will,  or  add  to  it  by  purchase.  The  New  Englander 
loved  a  land  sale  as  he  loved  a  horse  trade  and  any 
dicker  in  prices;  but  he  had  a  stubborn  sense  of 
justice  and  a  regard  for  the  letter  of  the  law  which 
often  drove  him  to  the  courts  in  defense  of  his  land 
claims.  Probably  a  majority  of  the  cases  which 
came  before  the  New  England  courts  in  colonial 
times  had  to  do  with  land.  Yet  there  was  little 
accumulation  of  large  properties  or  landed  estates, 
for  such  were  contrary  to  the  Puritan's  ideas  of 
equality.  Jonathan  Belcher,  later  a  Governor 
of  Massachusetts,  had  in  eastern  Connecticut  a 
manor  called  Mortlake,  on  which  were  a  few  un- 
enterprising tenants,  holding  their  land  for  a  money 
rental.  There  are  other  instances  of  lands  let  out 
in  a  similar  manner  on  limited  leases,  but  the 
number  was  not  large,  for,  as  Hutchinson  said,  the 


28  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

Puritan's  ruling  passion  was  for  a  freehold  and  not 
a  tenancy,  and  "where  there  is  one  farm  in  the 
hands  of  a  tenant, "  he  added,  "there  are  fifty  occu- 
pied by  him  who  has  the  fee  of  it." 

Outside  New  England  there  was  greater  vari- 
ety of  landholding  and  cultivation.  The  Puritan 
traveler  journeying  southward  through  the  Mid- 
dle Colonies  must  have  seen  many  new  and  un 
familiar  sights  as  he  looked  over  the  country 
through  which  he  passed.  He  would  have  found 
himself  entirely  at  home  among  the  towns  of 
Long  Island,  Westchester  County,  and  northern 
New  Jersey,  and  would  have  discovered  much 
in  the  Dutch  villages  about  New  York  and  up 
the  Hudson  that  reminded  him  of  the  closely 
grouped  houses  and  small  allotments  of  his  na- 
tive heath.  But  had  he  stopped  to  investigate 
such  large  estates  as  the  Scarsdale,  Pelham, 
Fordham,  and  Morrisania  manors  on  his  way  tc 
New  York,  or  turned  aside  to  inspect  the  great 
Philipse  and  Cortlandt  manors  along  the  lower 
Hudson,  or  the  still  greater  Livingston,  Claverack, 
and  Rensselaer  manors  farther  north,  he  would 
have  seen  wide  acres  under  cultivation,  with  ten- 
ants and  rent  rolls  and  other  aspects  of  a  pro- 
prietary and  aristocratic  order.  Had  he  made 


TOWN  AND  COUNTRY  29 

further  inquiries  or  extended  his  observations  to 
the  west  and  north  of  the  Hudson,  he  would 
have  come  upon  grants  of  thousands  of  acres  lav- 
ishly allotted  by  governors  to  favored  individ' 
uals.  He  would  then  have  realized  that  the  divi- 
sion of  land  in  New  York,  instead  of  being  fairly 
equal  as  in  New  England,  was  grossly  unequal. 
On  the  one  hand  were  the  petty  acres  of  small 
farms  surrounding  the  towns  and  villages;  on  the 
other  were  such  great  estates  as  Morrisania  and 
Rensselaerwyck,  where  the  farmers  were  not  free- 
holders but  tenants,  and  where  the  proprietors 
could  ride  for  miles  through  arable  land,  meadow, 
and  woodland,  without  crossing  the  boundaries  of 
their  own  territory.  If  the  traveler  had  been  in- 
terested, as  the  average  New  England  farmer  was 
not,  in  the  deeper  problems  of  politics,  he  would 
have  seen,  in  this  combination  of  small  holdings 
with  large,  one  explanation,  at  least,  of  the  dif- 
ferences in  political  and  social  life  that  existed 
between  New  England  and  New  York. 

What  the  traveler  might  have  noticed  in  New 
York,  he  would  have  found  repeated  in  a  lesser 
degree  in  New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania.  There, 
too,  he  would  have  seen  large  properties,  such  a3 
the  great  tracts  set  apart  for  the  proprietors  and 


30  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

still  awaiting  sale  and  distribution,  and  such  ex- 
tensive estates  as  that  of  Lewis  Morris,  known  as 
Tinton  Manor,  near  Shrewsbury  in  East  Jersey, 
and  the  proprietary  manors  of  the  Penns  at  Penns- 
bury  on  the  Delaware  and  at  Muncy  on  the  Sus- 
quehanna.  But  there  were  also  thousands  of  small 
fields  belonging  to  the  Puritan  and  Dutch  settlers 
at  Newark,  Elizabeth,  Middletown,  Bergen,  and 
other  towns  in  northern  New  Jersey,  and  a  con- 
stantly increasing  number  of  somewhat  larger 
farms  in  the  hands  of  the  Germans  and  Scotch- 
Irish  in  the  back  counties  of  Pennsylvania.  The 
traveler  would  have  noticed  also,  as  he  rode  from 
Perth  Amboy  to  Bordentown  or  Burlington,  or 
from  New  Brunswick  to  Trenton,  that  central  New 
Jersey  was  aflat,  unoccupied  country,  with  scarcely 
a  mountain  or  even  a  hill  in  forty  miles,  that  the 
sort  of  towns  he  was  familiar  with  had  entirely 
disappeared,  and  that  along  the  highway  to  the 
Delaware  and  even  from  Trenton  to  Philadelphia, 
the  country  had  only  an  occasional  isolated  farm- 
stead. He  would  have  met  with  no  plantations  in 
the  southern  sense  of  the  word,  with  almost  no 
tenancies  like  those  at  Rensselaerwyck,  and  with 
only  a  few  compact  settlements,  such  as  the 
large  towns  of  Trenton,  Bordentown,  Burlington, 


TOWN  AND  COUNTRY  31 

Philadelphia,  Germantown,  and  Lancaster,  and 
the  loosely  grouped  villages  of  the  Germans,  where 
the  lands  were  held  in  blocks  and  the  houses  of 
the  settlers  were  more  scattered  than  among  the 
Puritans.  He  would  have  learned  also  that,  in 
Pennsylvania  particularly,  the  needs  of  the  propri- 
etors, the  demands  of  the  colonists,  and  the  char- 
acter of  the  crops  were  leading  to  frequent  sales 
and  to  the  division  of  large  estates  into  small  and 
manageable  farms. 

What  probably  would  have  interested  the  New 
Englanders  as  much  as  anything  else  was  the 
interdependence  of  city  and  country  which  was 
frequently  manifested  along  the  way.  Unlike  the 
Puritans,  to  whom  countryseats  and  summer  re- 
sorts were  unknown  and  trips  to  mountain  and 
seashore  were  strictly  matters  of  necessity  or  busi- 
ness, the  townfolk  of  the  Middle  Colonies  residing 
in  New  York,  Burlington,  and  Philadelphia  had 
country  residences,  not  mere  cottages  for  make- 
shift housekeeping  but  substantial  structures,  often 
of  brick,  well  furnished  within  and  surrounded 
by  grounds  neatly  kept  and  carefully  cultivated. 
There  were  many  stately  "gentlemen's  seats," 
belonging  to  the  gentry  of  New  York,  between 
Kingsbridge  and  the  city  and  on  Long  Island,  for 


32  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

what  is  now  Greater  New  York  was  then  for  the 
most  part  open  country,  hilly,  rocky,  and  heavily 
wooded,  interspersed  here  and  there  with  houses, 
farms,  fields,  groves,  and  orchards  of  fruit  trees, 
and  threaded  by  roads,  some  good  and  some  bad. 
Philip  Van  Cortlandt  had  his  country  place  six 
miles,  as  he  then  reckoned  it,  from  the  city.  Here 
at  Bloomingdale,  a  village  in  a  sparsely  settled 
neighborhood  —  now  the  uptown  shopping  dis- 
trict of  New  York,  somewhat  north  of  the  present 
public  library  —  he  was  wont  to  send  Mrs.  Van 
Cortlandt  and  his  "little  family"  to  spend  "the 
somer  season."  The  Burlington  merchants  had 
their  country  houses  near  the  Delaware  on  the 
high  ground  stretching  along  the  river  and  back  to- 
ward the  interior.  On  the  other  hand,  Philadel- 
phia merchants,  mayors,  and  provincial  governors, 
whose  city  life  was  confined  to  half  a  dozen  streets 
running  parallel  to  the  Delaware,  had  their  coun- 
try residences  often  twelve  or  fifteen  miles  away, 
sometimes  in  West  Jersey,  but  more  often  in  Penn- 
sylvania itself,  adjacent  to  the  familiar  and  well- 
trodden  highways.  These  roads,  which  radiated 
northwest  and  south  from  the  river,  formed  arteries 
of  supply  for  the  markets  and  ships  along  the  docks 
and,  during  certain  times  and  seasons,  afforded 


TOWN  AND  COUNTRY  33 

means  of  social  intercourse  between  the  business  of 
the  countinghouse  in  town  and  the  pleasure  of  the 
dining  hall  and  assembly  room  in  the  country. 

To  the  Southerner,  on  the  other  hand,  who 
passed  observantly  northward  and  viewed  with  dis- 
cernment the  country  from  Maryland  to  that  "  way 
down  east"  land  of  Maine  which  was  as  yet  little 
more  than  a  narrow  fringe  of  rocky  coast  between 
the  Piscataqua  and  the  Kennebec,  all  these  condi- 
tions of  housing  and  cultivation  must  have  seemed 
to  a  large  extent  strangely  novel  and  unfamiliar. 
The  Southerner  was  not  used  to  small  holdings  and 
closely  settled  towns;  his  eye  was  accustomed  to 
range  over  wide  stretches  of  land  filled  with  large 
estates  and  plantations.  The  clearings  to  which 
he  was  accustomed,  though  often  little  more  than 
a  third  of  the  whole  area,  consisted  of  great  fields 
01  tobacco,  grain,  rice,  and  indigo,  and  presented 
an  appearance  essentially  unlike  that  of  the  small 
and  scattered  lots  and  farms  of  the  New  England 
towns.  He  was  unacquainted  with  the  self- 
centered  activity  of  those  busy  northern  com- 
jnunities  or  the  narrow  range  of  petty  duties  and 
interests  that  filled  the  day  of  the  Puritan  farmer 
and  tradesman.  Were  he  a  landed  aristocrat  of 
Anne  Arundel  or  Talbot  county  in  Maryland,  he 


34  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

would  himself  have  possessed  an  enormous  amount 
of  property  consisting  of  scattered  tracts  in  all 
parts  of  the  province,  sometimes  fifteen  or  thirty 
thousand  acres  in  all.  Many  of  these  estates  he 
was  accustomed  to  speak  of  as  manors,  though  the 
peculiar  rights  which  distinguished  a  manor  from 
any  other  tract  of  land  early  disappeared,  and  the 
manor  in  Maryland  and  Virginia,  as  elsewhere, 
meant  merely  a  landed  estate.  But  the  name  un- 
doubtedly gave  a  certain  distinction  to  the  owner 
and  probably  served  to  hold  the  lands  together  in 
spite  of  the  prevailing  tendency  in  Maryland  to 
break  up  the  estates  into  small,  convenient  farms. 
Doughoregan  Manor  of  the  Carrolls  with  its  ten 
thousand  acres,  for  instance,  remains  undivided  to 
this  day. 

By  the  wealthy  Virginian  the  term  manor  was 
used  much  less  frequently  than  it  was  in  Maryland, 
while  in  the  Carolinas  and  Georgia  it  was  not  used 
at  all.  In  Virginia,  even  though  the  great  planta- 
tion with  its  appendant  farms  and  quarters  in 
different  counties  could  be  reached  often  only  after 
long  and  troublesome  rides  over  bad  roads  through 
the  woods,  the  estate  was  generally  kept  intact. 
Though  land  was  frequently  leased  and  over- 
seers were  usually  employed  to  manage  outlying 


TOWN  AND  COUNTRY  35 

properties,  the  habit  of  splitting  up  estates  into 
small  farms  was  much  less  common  than  it  was  in 
Maryland.  Councilman  Carter  owned,  we  are 
told,  some  sixty  thousand  acres  situated  in  nearly 
every  county  in  Virginia,  six  hundred  negroes,  lands 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Williamsburg,  an  "elegant 
and  spacious"  house  in  the  same  city,  stock  in  the 
Baltimore  Iron  Works,  and  several  farms  in  Mary- 
land. It  was  not  at  all  uncommon  for  men  in  one 
town  or  colony  to  own  land  in  another,  for  even  in 
New  England  the  owners  of  town  lands  were  not 
always  residents  of  the  town  in  which  the  lands 
were  situated. 

It  would  be  a  mistake,  however,  to  think  of 
Maryland  and  Virginia  as  covered  only  by  great 
plantations  with  swarms  of  slaves  and  lordly  man- 
sions. In  both  these  Southern  Colonies  there  were 
hundreds  of  small  farmers  possessing  single  grants 
of  land  upon  which  they  had  erected  modest  houses. 
Many  of  these  farmers  rented  lands  of  the  planter 
under  limited  leases  and  paid  their  rents  in  money, 
or  probably  more  often  in  produce,  labor,  and 
money,  as  did  the  tenants  of  William  Beverley 
of  Beverley  Manor  on  the  Rappahannock.  As 
many  of  the  large  estates  in  Maryland  could  not 
be  worked  by  the  owner,  the  practice  arose  of 


36  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

renting  some  and  of  breaking  up  others  for  sale. 
In  this  way  there  came  into  existence  numbers  of 
middle-class  landholders,  who  formed  a  distinctly 
democratic  element  both  in  Maryland  and  Vir- 
ginia. They  cultivated  small  plantations  rang- 
ing from  150  to  500  acres,  not  more  than  a  third 
of  which  was  improved  even  by  1760.  Daniel  Du- 
lany,  the  famous  lawyer  of  Annapolis  who  had 
made  his  money  in  tidewater  enterprises,  bought 
land  in  central  Maryland,  which  he  rented  out 
to  Germans  from  Pennsylvania  and  thus  be- 
came a  land  promoter  and  town  builder  on  an 
extensive  scale. 

Though  no  such  mania  for  land  speculation 
seized  upon  the  Virginia  planters,  they  were  equally 
zealous  in  acquiring  properties  for  themselves  be- 
yond the  "fall  line"  to  the  west,  and  some  of 
them  endeavored  to  add  to  their  wealth  by  pro- 
moting the  building  of  towns.  It  was  in  1745  that 
Dulany  laid  out  the  town  of  Frederick  as  a  shrewd 
business  enterprise.  Eight  years  earlier,  the  second 
William  Byrd,  one  of  the  f  arseeing  men  of  his  time, 
had  advertised  for  sale  in  town  lots  his  property 
near  the  inspection  houses  at  Shoccoe's.  This  was 
the  beginning  of  Richmond,  the  capital  of  Virginia. 
Less  successful  was  Richard  Randolph  when,  in 


TOWN  AND  COUNTRY  37 

1739,  he  tried  to  attract  purchasers  to  his  town  of 
Warwick,  in  Henrico  County,  modeled  after  Phila- 
delphia, with  a  hundred  lots  at  ten  pistoles  each, 
a  common,  and  all  conveniences  for  trade  thrown 
into  the  bargain.  But  the  only  really  important 
towns  in  these  colonies  during  the  colonial  period 
were  Annapolis  and  Williamsburg.  In  these  towns 
many  of  the  planters  had  houses  which  they  occu- 
pied during  the  greater  part  of  the  year  or  at  any 
rate  when  the  Assembly  was  in  session  and  life 
was  gay  and  festive.  Such  other  centers  of  popu- 
lation as  Baltimore,  Frederick,  Hagerstown,  Nor- 
folk, Falmouth,  Fredericksburg,  and  Winchester 
played  little  part  in  the  life  of  the  colonies  except 
as  business  communities. 

As  the  Albemarle  region  of  North  Carolina  was 
settled  from  Virginia,  the  plantation  and  the  to- 
(jacco  field  were  introduced  together,  and  along 
the  sound  and  its  rivers  landed  conditions  arose 
similar  in  some  respects  to  those  in  Virginia.  The 
word  "farm"  was  not  used,  but  the  term  "planta- 
tion" was  employed  to  include  anything  from  the 
great  estates  of  such  men  as  Seth  Sothell,  one  of  the 
"true  and  absolute  proprietors,"  and  Philip  Lud- 
well,  Governor,  to  the  small  holdings  of  less  impor- 
tant men,  who  received  grants  from  the  proprietors 


38  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

and  later  from  the  Crown  in  amounts  not  exceeding 
a  square  mile  in  extent.  Though  as  a  rule  the  hold- 
ings in  Albemarle  were  smaller  than  elsewhere  in 
the  South  and  the  conditions  of  life  were  simpler 
and  less  elaborate,  the  farmers  were  still  freeholders, 
not  tenants.  The  whole  of  this  section  remained 
less  developed  in  education,  religious  organization, 
and  wealth  than  other  plantation  colonies,  and 
such  towns  as  it  had,  Edenton,  Bath,  New  Bern, 
and  Halifax,  were  smaller  and  less  conspicuous  as 
social  and  business  centers  than  were  Annapolis, 
Williamsburg,  and  Charleston.  Governor  Johns- 
ton, who  was  largely  responsible  for  the  transfer 
of  government  from  New  Bern  to  the  Cape  Fear 
River,  said  in  1748:  "We  still  continue  vastly  be- 
hind the  rest  of  the  British  settlements  both  in 
our  civil  constitution  and  in  making  a  proper  use  of 
a  good  soil  and  an  excellent  climate." 

It  was  an  important  event  in  the  history  of 
North  Carolina  when  Maurice  and  Roger  Moore  of 
South  Carolina  in  1725  selected  a  site  on  the  south 
bank  of  the  Cape  Fear  River,  ten  miles  from  its 
mouth,  and  laid  out  the  town  of  Brunswick.  With 
the  transfer  of  the  colony  to  the  Crown  in  1729,  the 
settlement  increased  and  prospered,  lands  were 
taken  up  on  both  sides  of  the  river  from  its  mouth 


TOWN  AND  COUNTRY  39 

to  the  upper  branches,  and  plantations  were  es- 
tablished which  equaled  in  size  and  productiveness 
all  but  the  very  largest  in  Maryland,  Virginia,  and 
South  Carolina.  At  first  many  of  the  planters  pur- 
chased lots  in  Brunswick,  but  afterwards  trans- 
ferred their  allegiance  to  Wilmington  on  the  re- 
moval to  that  town  of  the  center  of  social  and  polit- 
ical life.  No  people  in  the  Southern  Colonies  were 
more  devoted  than  they  to  their  plantation  life  or 
took  greater  pride  in  the  beauty  and  wholesome- 
ness  of  their  country.  They  raised  corn  and  pro- 
visions, bred  stock  —  notably  the  famous  black  cat- 
tle of  North  Carolina  —  and  made  pitch,  tar,  and 
turpentine  from  their  lightwood  trees,  and  these, 
together  with  lumber,  frames  of  houses,  and  shin- 
gles, they  shipped  to  England  and  to  the  West 
Indies.  The  Highlanders  who  settled  at  Cross 
Creek  at  the  head  of  navigation  above  Wilming- 
ton brought  added  energy  and  enterprise  to  the 
colony  and  developed  its  trade  by  shipping  the 
products  of  the  back  country  down  the  river  and 
by  taking  in  return  the  manufactures  of  England 
and  the  products  of  the  West  Indies.  Some  of 
them  built  at  Cross  Creek  dwellings  and  ware- 
houses, mills  and  stores,  and  set  up  plantations 
in  the  neighborhood;  others,  among  whom  were 


40  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

a  few  Lowland  Scots,  spread  farther  afield  and 
bought  lands  even  in  the  Albemarle  region.  To 
this  section,  after  it  had  stagnated  for  thirty 
years,  they  brought  new  interests  and  prosperity 
by  opening  communication  with  Norfolk,  in  Vir- 
ginia, as  a  port  of  entry  and  a  market  for  their 
staples.  They  thus  prepared  the  way  for  a  prom- 
ising agricultural  and  commercial  development, 
which  unfortunately  was  checked  and  for  the  mo- 
ment ruined  by  the  unhappy  excesses  and  hostil- 
ities of  the  Revolutionary  period. 

South  of  Cape  Fear  lay  Georgetown,  Charleston, 
and  Savannah,  centers  of  plantation  districts  chiefly 
on  the  lower  reaches  of  the  rivers  of  South  Carolina 
and  Georgia.  These  plantations  were  character- 
ized by  a  close  union  between  town 'and  country 
South  Carolina  differed  from  the  other  colonies  in 
that  a  considerable  portion  of  her  territory  had 
been  laid  out  in  baronies  under  that  clause  of  the 
Fundamental  Constitutions  which  stipulated  the 
number  of  acres  to  be  set  apart  for  colonists  bear- 
ing titles  of  nobility.  Thus  it  was  provided  that 
48,000  acres  should  be  the  portion  for  a  landgrave, 
24,000  for  a  cacique,  and  12,000  for  a  barony.  Many 
colonists  who  bore  these  titles  took  up  lands  at 
various  times  and  in  varying  amounts,  but  their 


TOWN  AND  COUNTRY  41 

properties,  which  probably  never  exceeded  5,000 
acres  in  a  single  grant,  differed  in  no  way  but  name 
from  any  other  large  plantations.  The  most  fa- 
mous of  the  landgraves  were  Thomas  Smith,  who 
was  Governor  in  1695,  and  his  son,  the  second 
landgrave,  whose  mansion  of  Yeomans  Hall  on  the 
Cooper  River,  with  all  its  hospitality,  gayety,  ro- 
mance, and  tragedy,  has  been  graphically  though 
somewhat  fancifully  pictured  by  Mrs.  Elizabeth  A, 
Poyas  in  The  Olden  Time  of  Carolina. 

Most  of  the  plantations  of  South  Carolina  and 
Georgia  were  smaller  than  those  in  Maryland 
and  Virginia.  A  single  tract  rarely  exceeded  2000 
acres,  and  an  entire  property  did  not  often  include 
more  than  5000  acres.  These  estates  seem  to  have 
been  on  the  whole  more  compact  and  less  scattered 
than  elsewhere.  They  lay  contiguous  to  each  other 
in  many  instances  and  formed  large  continuous 
areas  of  rice  land,  pine  land,  meadow,  pasture,  and 
swamp.  Upon  such  plantations  the  colonists  built 
substantial  houses  of  brick  and  cypress,  generally 
less  elaborate  than  those  in  Virginia,  particularly 
when  they  were  described  as  of  "the  rustic  order." 
There  were  also  tanyards,  distilleries,  and  soap- 
houses,  as  well  as  all  facilities  for  raising  rice,  corn, 
and  later  indigo.  At  first  the  chief  staple  on  these 


42  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

plantations  was  rice;  but  the  introduction  of  indigo 
in  1745,  with  its  requirement  of  vats,  pumps,  and 
reservoirs,  and  its  plague  of  refuse  and  flies,  though 
of  great  significance  in  restoring  the  prosperity  of 
the  province,  gave  rise  to  new  and  in  some  respects 
less  agreeable  conditions.  The  plantations  were 
also  supplied  with  a  plentiful  stock  of  cattle  and 
the  necessary  household  goods  and  furnishings. 
The  following  detailed  description  of  William  Dry's 
plantation  on  the  Cooper  River,  two  miles  above 
Goose  Creek,  is  worth  quoting.  The  estate,  which 
fronted  the  high  road,  is  described  as 

having  on  it  a  good  brick  dwelling  house,  two  brick  store 
houses,  a  brick  kitchen  and  washhouse,  a  brick  neces- 
sary house,  a  barn  with  a  large  brick  chimney,  with 
several  rice  mills,  mortars,  etc.,  a  winnowing  house,  an 
oven,  a  large  stable  and  coach-house,  a  cooper's  shop,  a 
house  built  for  a  smith's  shop;  a  garden  on  each  side  of 
the  house,  with  posts,  rails,  and  poles  of  the  best  stuff, 
all  planed  and  painted  and  bricked  underneath;  a  fish 
pond,  well  stored  with  perch,  roach,  pike,  eels,  and  cat- 
fish; a  handsome  cedar  horse-block  or  double  pair  of 
stairs;  frames,  planks,  etc.,  ready  to  be  fixed  in  and 
about  a  spring  within  three  stones'  throw  of  the  house, 
intended  for  a  cold  bath  and  house  over  it;  three  large 
dam  ponds,  whose  tanks  with  some  small  repairs  will 
drown  upwards  of  100  acres  of  land,  which  being  very 
plentifully  stored  with  game  all  the  winter  season 


TOWN  AND  COUNTRY  43 

affords  great  diversion;  an  orchard  of  very  good  apple 
and  peach  trees,  a  corn  house  and  poultry  house  that 
may  with  repairing  serve  some  years  longer,  a  small 
tenement  with  a  brick  chimney  on  the  other  side  of  the 
high  road,  fronting  the  dwelling  house,  and  at  least 
400  acres  of  the  land  cleared,  all  except  what  is  good 
pasture,  and  no  part  of  the  tract  bad,  the  whole  hav- 
ing a  clay  foundation  and  not  deep,  the  great  part  of 
it  fenced  in,  and  upwards  of  a  mile  of  it  with  a  ditch 
seven  feet  wide  and  three  and  a  half  deep. 

Most  of  the  South  Carolina  planters  had  their 
town  houses  and  divided  their  time  between  city 
and  country.  They  lived  in  Charleston,  George- 
town, Beaufort  Town,  and  Dorchester,  but  of  these 
Charleston  was  the  Mecca  toward  which  all  eyes 
turned  and  in  which  all  lived  who  had  any  social 
or  political  ambitions.  Attempts  were  made  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  in  this  colony  as  elsewhere, 
to  boom  land  sites  for  the  erecting  of  towns  on 
an  artificial  plan.  In  1738,  the  second  landgrave, 
Thomas  Smith,  tried  to  start  a  town  on  his  Win- 
yaw  tract  near  Georgetown.  He  laid  out  a  portion 
of  the  land  along  the  bluff  above  the  Winyaw  River 
in  lots,  offered  to  sell  some  and  to  give  away  others, 
and  planned  to  provide  a  church,  a  meetinghouse, 
and  a  school.  But  this  venture  failed;  and  even 
the  more  successful  attempt  to  build  up  Willtown 


44  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

about  the  same  time,  although  lots  were  sold  and 
houses  built  and  occupied,  eventually  came  to 
nothing.  The  story  of  some  of  these  dead  towns 
of  the  South,  whether  promoted  by  natives  or  set- 
tled by  foreigners,  has  been  told  only  in  part  and 
forms  an  interesting  chapter  in  colonial  history. 

In  all  the  colonies,  indeed,  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury saw  a  vast  deal  of  land  speculation.  The 
merchants  and  shopkeepers  in  most  of  the  large 
towns  acted  as  agents  and  bought  and  sold  on  com- 
mission. Just  as  George  Tilly,  merchant  and  con- 
tractor of  Boston,  advertised  good  lots  for  sale  in 
1744,  so  John  Laurens,  Robert  Hume,  and  Ben- 
jamin Whitaker  in  Charleston  a  little  later  were 
dealing  in  houses,  tenements,  and  plantations  as  a 
side  line  to  their  regular  business  as  saddlers  and 
merchants.  In  the  seventies  the  sale  of  land  had 
become  an  end  in  itself,  and  one  Jacob  Valk  ad- 
vertised himself  as  a  "Real  and  Personal  Estate 
Dealer."  The  meaning  of  the  change  is  clear. 
Desirable  lands  in  the  older  settlements  were  no 
longer  available  except  by  purchase,  and  men  were 
already  looking  beyond  the  "fall  line"  and  the 
back  country  to  the  ungranted  lands  of  the  new 
frontier  in  the  farther  West. 


CHAPTER   III 

COLONIAL    HOUSES 

IT  is  well  worth  while  for  us  at  this  point  to  look 
more  in  detail  at  the  colonial  towns  to  see  the 
houses  in  which  our  ancestors  dwelt  and  to  note 
the  architecture  of  their  public  edifices,  for  these 
men  had  a  distinctive  style  of  building  as  charac- 
teristic of  their  age  as  skyscrapers  and  apartment 
houses  are  of  the  present  century.  The  household 
furnishings  have  also  a  charm  of  their  own  and  in 
many  cases,  by  their  combination  of  utility  and 
good  taste,  have  provided  models  for  the  craftsmen 
of  a  later  day.  A  brief  survey  of  colonial  houses, 
inside  and  out,  will  serve  to  give  us  a  much  clearer 
idea  of  the  environment  in  which  the  people  lived 
during  the  colonial  era. 

The  materials  used  by  the  colonists  for  building 
were  wood,  brick,  and  more  rarely  stone.  At  first 
practically  all  houses  wrere  of  wood,  as  was  natural 
in  a  country  where  this  material  lay  ready  to  every 

45 


46  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

man's  hand  and  where  the  means  for  making  brick 
or  cutting  stone  were  not  readily  accessible.  Clay, 
though  early  used  for  chimneys,  was  not  substan- 
tial enough  for  housebuilding,  and  lime  for  mortar 
and  plaster  was  not  easy  to  obtain.  Though  lime- 
stone was  discovered  in  New  England  in  1697,  it 
was  not  known  at  all  in  the  tidewater  section  of  the 
South,  where  lime  continued  to  the  end  of  the  era 
to  be  made  from  calcined  oyster  shells.  The  seven- 
teenth century  was  the  period  of  wooden  houses, 
wooden  churches,  and  wooden  public  buildings;  it 
was  the  eighteenth  century  which  saw  the  erection 
of  brick  buildings  in  America. 

Up  to  the  time  of  the  Revolution  bricks  were 
brought  from  England  and  Holland,  and  are  found 
entered  in  cargo  lists  as  late  as  1770,  though  they 
probably  served  often  only  as  ballast.  But  most 
of  the  bricks  used  in  colonial  buildings  were  mold- 
ed and  burnt  in  America.  There  were  brickkilns 
everywhere  in  the  colonies  from  Portsmouth  to 
Savannah.  Indeed  bricks  were  made,  north  and 
south,  in  large  enough  quantities  to  be  exported 
yearly  to  the  West  Indies.  As  building  stone 
scarcely  existed  in  the  South,  all  important  build- 
ings there  were  of  brick,  or  in  case  greater  strength 
were  needed,  as  for  Fort  Johnston  at  the  mouth  of 


COLONIAL  HOUSES  47 

the  Cape  Fear  River  or  the  fortifications  of  Charles- 
ton, of  tappy  work,  a  mixture  of  concrete  arid  shells. 
Brick  walls  were  often  built  very  thick;  those  of  St. 
Philip's  Church,  Brunswick,  still  show  three  feet  in 
depth.  Chimneys  were  heavy,  often  in  stacks,  and 
windows  as  a  rule  were  small.  The  bonding  was 
English,  Flemish,  or  "running,"  according  to  the 
taste  of  the  builder,  and  many  of  the  houses  had 
stone  trimming,  which  had  to  be  brought  from  Eng- 
land, if  it  were  of  freestone  as  was  suggested  for 
King's  Chapel,  Boston,  or  of  marble  as  in  Gov- 
ernor Tryon's  palace  in  New  Bern. 

Buildings  of  stone  were  not  common  and  were 
confined  chiefly  to  the  North,  where  this  material 
could  be  easily  and  cheaply  obtained.  As  early 
as  1639  Henry  Whitfield  erected  a  house  of  stone 
at  Guilford,  Connecticut,  to  serve  in  part  as  a  place 
of  defense,  and  in  other  places,  here  and  there,  were 
to  be  found  stone  buildings  used  for  various  pur- 
poses. It  has  been  said  that  King's  Chapel,  Bos- 
ton, built  in  1749-54,  was  the  first  building  in 
America  to  be  constructed  of  hewn  stone,  but  this 
is  not  the  case.  Some  of  the  early  houses  in  New 
York  as  well  as  the  two  Anglican  churches  were  of 
hewn  stone.  The  Malbone  country  house  near 
Newport,  built  before  1750,  was  also  "of  hewn 


48  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

stone  and  all  the  corners  and  sides  of  the  windows 
painted  to  represent  marble. "  There  were  many 
houses  in  the  colonies  painted  to  resemble  stone, 
and  some  in  which  only  the  first  story  or  the  base- 
ment was  of  this  material,  while  in  many  instances 
there  were  broad  stone  steps  leading  up  to  a  house 
otherwise  constructed  of  wood  or  brick.  Stone 
for  building  purposes  was  therefore  well  known  and 
frequently  used. 

Travelers  who  visited  the  leading  towns  in  the 
period  from  1750  to  1763  have  left  descriptions 
which  help  us  to  visualize  the  external  features 
of  these  places.  Portsmouth,  the  most  northerly 
town  of  importance,  had  houses  of  both  wood  and 
brick,  "large  and  exceeding  neat,"  we  are  told, 
"generally  3  story  high  and  well  sashed  and 
glazed  with  the  best  glass,  the  rooms  well  plastered 
and  many  wainscoted  or  hung  with  painted  paper 
from  England,  the  outside  clapboarded  very  neat- 
ly." Salem  was  "a  large  town  well  built,  many 
genteel  large  houses  (which  tho'  of  wood)  are  all 
pland  and  painted  on  the  outside  in  imitation  of 
hewn  stone."  By  1750  Boston  had  about  three 
thousand  houses  and  twenty  thousand  inhabitants; 
two-thirds  of  the  houses  were  of  wood,  two  or  three 
stories  high,  mostly  sashed,  the  remainder  of  brick, 


COLONIAL  HOUSES  49 

substantially  built  and  in  excellent  architectural 
taste.  The  streets  were  well  paved  with  stone,  a 
thing  rare  in  New  England,  but  those  in  the  North 
End  were  crooked,  narrow,  and  disagreeable.  Wor- 
cester was  "one  of  the  best  built  and  prettiest  in- 
land little  towns  "  that  Lord  Adam  Gordon  had  seen 
in  America.  The  houses  in  Newport,  with  one  or 
two  exceptions,  were  of  wood,  making  "a  good  ap- 
pearance and  also  as  well  furnished  as  in  most 
places  you  will  meet  with,  many  of  the  rooms  be- 
ing hung  with  printed  canvas  and  paper,  which 
looks  very  neat,  others  are  well  wainscoted  and 
painted. "  New  London  with  its  one  street  a 
mile  long  by  the  river  side  and  its  houses  built  of 
wood,  seemed  in  1750  to  be  "new  and  neat." 
New  Haven,  which  covered  a  great  deal  of  ground, 
was  laid  out  in  nine  squares  around  a  green  or 
market  place,  and  contained  many  houses  in  wood, 
a  few  in  brick  or  stone,  a  brick  statehouse,  a  brick 
meetinghouse,  and  Yale  College,  which  was  being 
rebuilt  in  brick.  Middletown,  though  one  of  the 
most  important  commercial  centers  between  New 
York  and  Boston  and  the  third  town  in  Con- 
necticut, had  only  wooden  houses.  Hartford, 
"a  large,  scattering  town  on  a  small  river"  (the 
Little  River  not  the  Connecticut  is  meant),  was 


50  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

built  chiefly  of  wood,  with  here  and  there  a  brick 
dwelling  house. 

New  York,  with  two  or  three  thousand  buildings 
and  from  sixteen  to  seventeen  thousand  people 
in  1760,  was  very  irregular  in  plan,  with  streets 
which  were  crooked  and  exceedingly  narrow  but 
generally  pretty  well  paved,  thus  adding  "much  to 
the  decency  and  cleanness  of  the  place  and  the  ad- 
vantage of  carriage."  Many  of  the  houses  were 
built  in  the  old  Dutch  fashion,  with  their  gables  to 
the  street,  but  others  were  more  modern,  "many 
of  'em  spacious,  genteel  houses,  some  being  4  or  5 
stories  high,  others  not  above  two,  of  hewn  stone, 
brick,  and  white  Holland  tiles,  neat  but  not 
grand. "  A  round  cupola  capping  a  square  wooden 
church  tower  rising  above  a  few  clustering  houses 
was  all  that  marked  the  town  of  Brooklyn,  while  a 
ferry  tavern  and  a  few  houses  were  all  that  fore- 
shadowed the  future  greatness  of  Jersey  City.  Al- 
bany was  as  yet  a  town  of  dirty  and  crooked  streets, 
with  its  houses  badly  built,  chiefly  of  wood,  and 
unattractive  in  appearance. 

Southward  across  the  river  from  New  York  were 
Elizabeth,  New  Brunswick,  and  Perth  Amboy,  the 
last  with  a  few  houses  for  the  "quality  folk,"  but 
"a  mean  village,"  albeit  one  of  the  capitals  of  the 


COLONIAL  HOUSES  51 

province  of  New  Jersey.  Burlington,  the  other 
capital,  consisted  "of  one  spacious  large  street  that 
runs  down  to  the  river, "  with  several  cross  streets, 
on  which  were  a  few  "tolerable  good  buildings," 
with  a  courthouse  which  made  "but  a  poor  figure, 
considering  its  advantageous  location."  Trenton, 
or  Trent  Town,  was  described  in  1749  as  "  a  fine  town 
and  near  to  Delaware  River,  with  fine  stone  build- 
ings and  a  fine  river  and  intervals  medows,  etc. " 

Philadelphia  had  2100  houses  in  1750  and  3600 
in  1765,  built  almost  entirely  of  brick,  generally 
"  three  stories  high  and  well  sashed,  so  that  the  city 
must  make  (take  it  upon  the  whole)  a  very  good 
figure. "  The  Virginia  ladies  who  visited  the  city 
were  wont  to  complain  of  the  small  rooms  and 
monotonous  architecture,  every  house  like  every 
other.  The  streets  were  paved  with  flat  footwalks 
on  each  side  of  the  street  and  well  illumined  with 
lamps,  which  Boston  does  not  appear  to  have  had 
until  1773.  Wilmington  on  the  Delaware  was  a 
very  young  town  in  1750,  "all  the  houses  being 
new  and  built  of  brick. "  Newcastle,  the  capital, 
was  a  poor  town  of  little  importance.  There  were 
but  few  towns  in  Maryland.  Annapolis,  the  capi- 
tal, was  "charmingly  situated  on  a  peninsula,  fall- 
ing different  ways  to  the  water  .  .  .  built  in  an 


52  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

irregular  form,  the  streets  generally  running  diag- 
onally and  ending  in  the  Town  House,  others  on  a 
house  that  was  built  for  the  Governor,  but  never 
was  finished."  This  "Governor's  House"  after- 
wards became  the  main  building  of  St.  John's  Col- 
lege. A  majority  of  the  residences  were  of  brick, 
substantially  built  within  brick  walls  enclosing 
gardens  in  true  English  fashion. 

Across  the  Potomac  was  Williamsburg,  the  capi- 
tal of  Virginia  and  the  seat  of  William  and  Mary 
College,  built  partly  of  brick  and  partly  of  wood, 
and  resembling,  it  seemed  to  Lord  Adam  Gordon, 
a  good  country  town  in  England.  Norfolk,  which 
was  built  chiefly  of  brick,  was  a  mercantile  center, 
with  warehouses,  ropewalks,  wharves,  and  ship- 
yards, while  Fredericksburg,  at  the  head  of  naviga- 
tion on  the  Rappahannock,  was  constructed  of 
wood  and  brick,  its  houses  roofed  with  shingles 
painted  to  resemble  slate.  Winchester  in  the  Shen- 
andoah  Valley  was  described  in  1755  as  "a  town 
built  of  limestone  and  covered  with  slate  with 
which  the  hills  abound. "  It  was  the  center  of  a 
settled  farming  country  and  its  inhabitants  en- 
joyed most  of  the  necessities  but  few  of  the  luxuries 
of  life  and  had  almost  no  books.  It  is  described  as 
being  "inhabited  by  a  spurious  race  of  mortals 


COLONIAL  HOUSES  53 

known  by  the  appellation  of  Scotch-Irish.  "  In  all 
of  these  towns  were  one  or  more  churches,  the 
market  house,  prison,  and  pillory,  and  in  the  chief 
city  at  the  usual  place  of  execution  was  the  gallows 
of  the  colony. 

The  older  towns  of  North  Carolina,  Edenton, 
Bath,  Halifax,  and  New  Bern,  were  all  small,  and 
in  1760  were  either  stationary  or  declining.  Their 
houses  were  built  of  wood  and,  except  for  Tryon'c 
palace  at  New  Bern  —  an  extravagant  structure, 
considering  the  resources  of  the  colony  —  the  pub  He 
buildings  were  of  no  significance.  Brunswick,  too, 
was  declining  and  was  but  a  poor  town,  "with  a 
few  scattered  houses  on  the  edge  of  a  wood," 
inhabited  by  merchants.  Wilmington  was  now 
rapidly  advancing  to  the  leading  place  in  the  prov- 
ince, because  of  its  secure  harbor,  easy  communi- 
cation with  the  back  country,  accessibility  to  the 
other  parts  of  the  colony,  fresh  water,  and  im- 
proved postal  facilities.  In  1760  it  had  about 
eight  hundred  people;  its  houses,  though  not  spa- 
cious, were  in  general  very  commodious  and  well 
furnished.  Peter  du  Bois  wrote  of  Wilmington  in 
1757:  "It  has  greatly  the  preference  in  my  esteem 
to  New  Bern  .  .  .  the  regularity  of  its  streets 
is  equal  to  that  of  Philadelphia  and  the  buildings 


54  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

are  in  general  very  good.  Many  of  brick,  two  or 
three  stories  high  with  double  piazzas,  which  make 
a  good  appearance. " 

Charleston,  or  Charles  Town  as  the  name  was 
always  written  in  colonial  times,  was  the  leading 
city  of  the  South  and  is  thus  described  by  Pelatiah 
Webster,  who  visited  it  in  1765:  "It  contains  ab* 
1000  houses  with  inhabitants  5000  whites  and 
20,000  blacks,  has  eight  houses  for  religious  wor- 
ship ...  the  streets  run  N.  &  S.  &  E.  &  W.  inter- 
secting each  other  at  right  angles,  they  are  not 
paved,  except  the  footways  within  the  posts  abt  6 
feet  wide,  which  are  paved  with  brick  in  the  princi- 
pal streets. "  According  to  a  South  Carolina  law  all 
buildings  had  to  be  of  brick,  but  the  law  was  not 
observed  and  many  houses  were  of  cypress  and  yeL 
low  pine.  Laurens  said  in  1756  that  "none  but 
the  better  class  glaze  their  houses. "  The  sanitary 
condition  of  all  colonial  towns  was  bad  enough,  but 
the  grand  jury  presentments  for  Charleston  and 
Savannah  which  constantly  found  fault  with  the 
condition  of  the  streets,  the  sewers,  and  necessary 
houses,  and  the  insufficient  scavenging,  leave  the 
impression  on  the  mind  of  the  reader  that  these 
towns  especially  were  afflicted  with  many  offensive 
smells  and  odors.  The  total  absence  of  any  proper 


COLONIAL  HOUSES  55 

health  precautions  explains  in  part  the  terrible  epi- 
demics, chiefly  of  smallpox,  which  scourged  the 
colonists  in  the  eighteenth  century. 

Taking  the  colonial  area  through  its  entire 
length  and  breadth,  we  find  individual  houses  of 
almost  every  description,  from  the  superb  man- 
sions of  the  Carters  in  Virginia  and  of  the  Vassalls 
in  Massachusetts  to  the  small  wooden  frame  build- 
ings, forty  by  twenty  feet  or  thereabouts,  "with 
a  shade  on  the  backside  and  a  porch  on  the  front, " 
and  the  simple  houses  of  the  country  districts  or 
the  western  frontier,  hundreds  of  which  were  small, 
of  one  story,  unpainted,  covered  with  roughhewn 
or  sawn  flat  boards,  weather-stained,  with  few 
windows  and  no  panes  of  glass,  and  without  adorn- 
ment or  architectural  taste.  One  traveler  speaks 
of  the  small  plantation  houses  in  Maryland  as 
"very  bad,  and  ill  contrived,  there  furniture  mean, 
their  cooks  and  housewifery  worse  if  possible,"1 
and  another  says  that  an  apartment  to  sleep  in  and 
Another  for  domestic  purposes,  with  a  contiguous 
storehouse  and  conveniences  for  their  live  stock 
gratified  the  utmost  ambition  of  the  settlers  in 
Frederick  County. 2  Many  a  colonist  north  of  the 
Potomac  lived  in  nothing  better  than  the  "crib  "  or 

1  Birket.  Cursory  Remarks,  1750.  4  Eddis,  Letters,  1769-1777 


56  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

"block"  house  which  was  made  of  squared  Jogs 
and  roofed  with  clapboards.  In  contrast  to  the 
typical  square-built  houses  of  New  England,  the 
Dutch  along  the  Hudson  and  even  to  the  eastward 
in  Litchfield  County,  Connecticut,  built  quaint, 
low  structures  which  they  frequently  placed  on  a 
hillside  in  order  to  utilize  the  basement  as  living 
rooms  for  the  family. 

The  better  colonial  houses  were  wainscoted  and 
paneled  or  plastered  and  whitewashed,  and  the 
woodwork — trim,  cornices,  stair  railings,  and  newel 
posts  —  was  often  elaborately  carved.  Floors  were 
sometimes  of  double  thickness  and  were  laid  so  that 
"the  seam  or  joint  of  the  upper  course  shall  fall 
upon  the  middle  of  the  lower  plank  which  prevents 
the  air  from  coming  thro'  the  floor  in  winter  or  the 
water  falling  down  in  summer  when  they  wash 
their  houses. "  Roofs  were  covered  with  tile,  slate, 
shingles,  and  lead,  though  much  of  the  last  was  re- 
moved for  bullets  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution. 
Flat  tiles,  made  in  Philadelphia  and  elsewhere,  were 
used  for  paving  chimney  hearths  and  for  adorn- 
ing mantels,  and  firebacks  imported  from  Eng- 
land were  widely  introduced.  Among  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Germans  wood  stoves  were  generally  used, 
but  soft  coal  brought  as  ballast  from  Newcastle, 


COLONIAL  HOUSES  57 

Liverpool,  and  other  ports  in  England  and  Scot- 
land was  also  for  sale.  Stone  coal  or  anthracite 
was  familiar  to  Pennsylvania  settlers  as  early  as 
1763,  but  until  just  before  the  Revolution  was  not 
burned  as  fuel  except  locally  and  on  a  small  scale. 
Wood  was  consumed  in  enormous  quantities  and 
we  are  told  that  at  Nomini  Hall  there  were  kept 
burning  twenty-eight  fires  which  required  four 
loads  of  wood  a  day.1 

There  were  few  professional  architects,  for  colo- 
nial planters  and  carpenters  did  their  own  planning 
and  building.  What  is  sometimes  called  the  "car- 
penters' colonial  style"  was  often  designed  on  the 
spot  or  taken  from  Batty  Langley's  Sure  Guide,  the 
Builders9  Jewel,  or  the  British  Palladia.  Smibert, 
the  painter  and  paint-shop  man  of  Boston,  de- 
signed Faneuil  Hall  and  succeeded  in  creating  a 
very  unsuccessful  building  architecturally.  The 
first  professional  architect  in  America  was  Peter 
Harrison,  who  drew  the  plans  for  King's  Chapel, 
the  Redwood  Library,  the  Jewish  Synagogue,  and 
Brick  Market  at  Newport,  yet  even  he  combined 
designing  with  other  avocations.  In  truth  there 
was  no  great  need  of  architects  in  colonial  days. 
Styles  did  not  vary  much,  certainly  not  in  New 

1  Fithian,  Diary.  1767-1774. 


58  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

England  and  the  Middle  Colonies,  and  a  good  car- 
penter and  builder  could  do  all  that  was  needed 
There  were  scores  of  houses  in  New  England  simi- 
lar to  Samuel  Seabury's  rectory  at  Hempstead, 
—  a  story  and  a  half  high  in  front,  with  a  roof  of 
a  single  pitch  sloping  down  to  one  story  in  the  rear, 
low  ceilings  everywhere,  four  rooms  with  a  hall  on 
the  first  floor,  a  kitchen  behind,  and  three  or  four 
rooms  on  the  second  story. 

The  brick  houses  were  more  elaborate  and  were 
sometimes  built  with  massive  end  chimneys,  be- 
tween which  was  a  steep-pitched  roof  with  dormers 
and  a  walk  from  chimney  to  chimney  many  feet 
wide.  Other  houses,  made  of  wood  as  well  as  brick, 
had  hipped  roofs  with  end  chimneys  or  roofs 
converging  to  a  square  center  and  a  railed  look- 
out. All  the  many  colonial  houses  still  stand- 
ing in  Connecticut  conform  to  a  common  type, 
though  they  differ  greatly  in  the  details  of  their 
paneling,  mantels,  cupboards,  staircases,  closed 
or  open  beamed  ceilings,  fireplaces,  and  the  like. 
Some  had  slave  quarters  in  the  basement,  others 
under  the  rafters  in  what  was  called  in  one  in- 
stance "the  Black  Hole. "  Many  of  even  the  bet- 
ter houses  were  unpainted  inside  and  out;  many 
had  paper,  hung  or  tacked  (afterwards  pasted)  on 


COLONIAL  HOUSES  59 

the  walls;  and  in  a  few  noteworthy  cases  in  New 
England  the  chimney  breasts  were  adorned  with 
paintings.  The  floors  were  usually  bare  or  cov- 
ered with  matting;  rugs  were  used  chiefly  at  the 
bedside,  but  carpets  were  rare. 

Philadelphia,  which  was  famous  for  the  uniform- 
ity of  its  architecture,  must  have  contained  in  1760 
many  houses  of  the  style  of  that  built  for  Provost 
Smith  of  the  College  of  Philadelphia.  In  addition 
to  a  garret  this  dwelling  had  three  stories  respec- 
tively eleven,  ten,  and  nine  feet  high.  The  brick 
outside  walls  were  fourteen  inches  thick  and  the 
partition  walls,  of  the  same  material,  nine  inches. 
There  were  windows  and  window  glass,  heavy 
shutters,  a  plain  cornice,  cedar  gutters  and  pipes. 
The  woodwork,  inside  and  out,  was  painted  white, 
and  all  the  rooms  were  plastered.  No  mention  is 
made  of  white  marble  steps,  but  there  may  have 
been  such,  for  no  Philadelphia  house  was  complete 
without  them. 

The  Southern  houses,  both  on  the  plantations 
and  in  the  towns,  varied  so  widely  in  their  style  of 
architecture  that  no  single  description  will  serve  to 
characterize  all.  Such  buildings  as  the  Governor's 
palace  at  Williamsburg,  Tryon's  palace  at  New 
Bern,  and  the  Government  House  at  Annapolis 


60  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

were  handsome  buildings  provided  with  conven- 
iences for  entertainment,  and  that  at  New  Bern 
contained  rooms  for  the  gathering  of  assembly  and 
council.  The  most  representative  Southern  plan- 
tation house  was  of  brick  with  wings,  the  kitchens 
on  one  side  and  the  carriage  house  on  the  other, 
sometimes  attached  directly  to  the  central  mansion 
and  sometimes  entirely  separate  or  connected  only 
by  a  corridor.  In  the  Carolinas  and  Georgia,  how- 
ever, there  were  many  rectangular  houses  without 
wings,  built  of  wood  or  brick,  with  rooms  avail- 
able for  summer  use  in  the  basement.  The  roof 
was  often  capped  with  a  cupola  and  commanded 
a  wide  prospect. 

The  dwelling  houses  of  Charleston  were  among 
the  most  distinctive  and  quaint  of  all  colonial 
structures.  Some  of  them  were  divided  into  "tene- 
ments" quite  unlike  the  tenements  and  flats  of  the 
present  day,  for,  in  addition  to  its  independent  por- 
tion of  the  house,  each  family  had  its  own  yard  and 
garden.  Overseers'  houses  were  as  a  rule  small, 
about  twenty  feet  by  twelve,  with  brick  chimneys 
and  plastered  rooms.  A  typical  Savannah  house 
had  two  stories,  with  a  handsome  balcony  in  front 
and  a  piazza  the  whole  length  of  the  building  in  the 
rear,  with  a  bedroom  at  one  end  and  a  storehouse  at 


COLONIAL  HOUSES  61 

the  other.  The  dining  room  was  on  the  second  floor, 
and  everywhere,  for  convenience  and  comfort,  were 
to  be  found  closets  and  fireplaces.  Among  the  gen- 
try in  a  country  where  storms  were  frequent,  elec- 
trical rods  were  in  use,  and  in  1763  one  Alexander 
Bell  of  Virginia  advertised  a  machine  for  protecting 
houses  from  being  struck  by  lightning,  though  what 
his  contrivance  was  we  do  not  know. 

The  town  halls  and  courthouses  generally  fol- 
lowed English  models,  with  public  offices  and  as- 
sembly rooms  on  the  upper  floor  and  a  market  and 
shops  below.  The  Southern  courthouses  were  at 
first  built  of  wood  and  later  of  brick,  with  shingled 
roofs,  heavy  planked  floors,  and  occasionally  a 
cupola  or  belfry.  Those  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury either  included  the  prison  and  pillory  or 
were  connected  with  them.  The  inadequacy  of 
jail  accommodation  was  a  cause  of  constant  com- 
plaint. Not  only  did  grand  juries  and  news- 
papers point  out  the  need  of  quarters  so  arranged 
that  debtors,  felons,  and  negroes  should  not  be 
thrown  together,  but  the  occupants  themselves 
protested  against  the  nauseating  smells  and  odors. 
In  some  of  the  prisons,  it  is  true,  a  separate  cage 
was  provided  for  the  negroes,  and  in  North  Caro- 
lina prison  bounds,  covering  some  six  acres  about 


62  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

the  building,  were  laid  out  for  the  use  of  the  pris- 
oners, an  arrangement  which  was  not  abolished  till 
the  nineteenth  century. 

In  all  the  cities  of  the  North  and  South  stores 
and  shops  were  to  be  found,  occupying  the  first 
floor,  while  the  family  lived  in  the  rooms  above. 
As  a  rule,  a  shop  meant  a  workshop  where  articles 
were  made,  a  store  a  storehouse  where  goods  were 
kept.  But  in  practice  usage  varied,  as  "shop"' 
was  in  common  use  in  New  England  for  any  place 
where  things  were  sold,  and  "store"  was  the  usual 
term  in  Philadelphia  and  the  South.  An  appren- 
tice writing  home  to  England  in  1755  and  trying  to 
explain  the  use  of  the  terms  said:  "Stores  here 
[in  Virginia]  are  much  like  shops  in  London,  only 
with  this  difference,  the  shops  sell  but  one  kind  or 
species  of  wares  and  stores  all  kinds. "  Some  of 
these  stores,  particularly  in  Maryland  and  Virginia, 
were  located  away  from  the  urban  centers,  in  the 
interior  near  the  courthouses  at  the  crossroads, 
along  the  rivers  at  the  tobacco  inspection  houses, 
or  wherever  else  men  congregated  for  business 
or  public  duty.  They  were  often  controlled  by 
English  or  Scottish  firms  and  managed  by  agents 
sent  to  America.  They  received  their  supplies 
from  Great  Britain  and  they  sold,  for  credit,  cash. 


COLONIAL  HOUSES  63 

v>r  tobacco,  almost  everything  that  the  neighbor- 
hood needed. 

Varied  as  were  the  architectural  features  of 
colonial  houses,  they  were  paralleled  by  an  equal 
diversity  in  the  household  effects  with  which  these 
dwellings  were  equipped.  It  is  impossible  even 
to  summarize  the  information  given  in  the  thou- 
sands of  extant  wills,  inventories,  and  invoices 
which  reveal  the  contents  and  furnishings  of  these 
houses.  Chairs,  bureaus,  tables,  bedsteads,  buffets, 
cupboards,  were  in  general  use.  They  were  made 
of  hickory,  pine,  maple,  cypress,  oak,  and  even 
mahogany,  which  began  to  be  used  as  early  as  1730. 
From  the  meager  dining  room  outfit  of  only  one 
chair,  a  bench,  and  a  table,  all  rough  and  home- 
made, we  pass  to  the  furnishings  of  the  richer  mer- 
chants in  the  Northern  cities  and  of  the  wealthier 
planters  in  Maryland,  Virginia,  and  the  Carolinas. 
But  we  cannot  take  the  establishments  of  Went- 
worth,  Hancock,  Vassall,  Faneuil,  Cuyler,  Morris, 
Carter,  Beverley,  Manigault,  or  Laurens  as  typical 
of  conditions  which  prevailed  in  the  majority  of 
colonial  homes.  Some  people  had  silver  plate,  ma- 
hogany, fine  china,  and  copper  utensils;  others 
owned  china,  delftware,  and  furniture  of  plain 
wood,  with  perhaps  a  few  silver  spoons,  a  porringer, 


64  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

and  an  occasional  mahogany  chair  and  table;  still 
others,  and  these  by  far  the  largest  number,  used 
only  pewter,  earthenware,  and  wooden  dishes,  with 
the  simpler  essentials,  spinning  wheel,  flatirons, 
pots  and  kettles,  lamps  and  candlesticks,  but  no 
luxuries.  There  was  in  addition,  of  course,  the 
class  of  the  hopelessly  poor,  but  it  was  not  large 
and  need  not  be  reckoned  with  here. 

The  average  New  England  country  household 
was  a  sort  of  self-sustaining  unit  which  depended 
little  on  the  world  beyond  its  own  gates.  Its 
equipment  included  not  only  the  usual  chairs,  beds, 
tables,  and  kitchen  utensils  and  tableware  but  also 
shoemakers'  tools  and  shoe  leather  —  frequently 
tanned  in  the  neighborhood  and  badly  done  as  a 
rule,  —  surgeon's  tools  and  apothecary  stuff,  salves 
and  ointments,  branding  irons,  pestle  and  mortar, 
lamps,  guns,  and  perhaps  a  sword,  harness  and 
fittings,  occasionally  a  still  or  a  cider  press,  and 
outfits  for  carpentering  and  blacksmithing.  The 
necessary  utensils  for  use  in  the  household  or  on 
the  farm  were  more  important  than  upholstery, 
carved  woodwork,  fine  linen,  or  silver  plate.  Every- 
where there  were  hundreds  of  families  which  con- 
cerned themselves  little  about  ornament  or  design. 
They  had  no  money  to  spend  on  unessentials,  still 


COLONIAL  HOUSES  65 

less  on  luxuries,  and  from  necessity  they  used  what 
they  already  possessed  until  it  was  broken  or  worn 
out;  then,  if  it  were  not  entirely  useless,  they  re- 
paired and  patched  it  and  went  on  as  before.  Econ- 
omy and  convenience  made  them  use  materials 
that  were  close  at  hand;  and  in  many  New  Eng- 
land towns  a  familiar  figure  was  the  wood  turner, 
who  made  plates  and  other  utensils  out  of  "dish- 
timber"  as  it  was  called,  a  white  wood  which  was 
probably  poplar  or  linden,  but  not  basswood.  Yet 
economical  as  these  people  were,  even  the  unpre- 
tentious households  possessed  an  abundance  of 
mugs  and  tankards,  which  suggest  their  one  indul- 
gence and  their  enjoyment  of  strong  drink. 

As  conditions  of  life  improved  and  wealth  in- 
creased, the  number  of  those  who  were  able  to  in- 
dulge in  luxuries  also  increased.  The  period  after 
1730  was  one  of  great  prosperity  in  the  colonies 
owing  to  the  enlarged  opportunities  for  making 
money  which  trade,  commerce,  and  markets  fur- 
nished. Though  it  was  also  a  time  of  higher  prices, 
rapid  advance  in  the  cost  of  living,  and  general 
complaint  of  the  inadequacy  of  existing  fees  and 
salaries,  those  who  were  engaged  in  trade  and  had 
access  to  markets  were  able  to  indulge  in  luxuries 
wbJck  were  unknown  to  the  earlier  settlers  and 


66  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

which  remained  unknown  to  those  living  in  the 
rural  districts  and  on  the  frontier. 

In  the  Northern  cities  and  on  Southern  planta- 
tions costly  and  beautiful  household  furnishings 
appeared :  furniture  was  carved  and  upholstered  in 
leather  and  rich  fabrics;  tables  were  adorned  with 
silver,  china,  and  glassware;  and  walls  were  hung 
with  expensive  papers  and  decorated  with  paint- 
ings and  engravings  —  all  brought  from  abroad. 
A  house  thus  equipped  was  not  unlikely  to  contain 
a  mahogany  dining  table  capable  of  seating  from 
fourteen  to  twenty  persons,  and  an  equal  number 
of  best  Russia  leather  chairs,  two  of  which  would  be 
arm  or  "elbow"  chairs,  double  nailed,  with  broad 
seats  and  leather  backs.  Washington,  for  example, 
in  1757  bought  "two  neat  mahogany  tables  4*/2' 
feet  square  when  spread  and  to  join  occasionally," 
and  "1  dozn  neat  and  strong  mahogany  chairs," 
some  with  "Gothick  arched  backs,"  and  one  "an 
easy  chair  on  casters."  About  the  rooms  were 
pieces  of  mahogany  furniture  of  various  styles, 
tea  tables,  card  tables,  candle  stands,  settees,  and 
"sophas. "  On  the  walls,  which  were  frequently 
papered,  painted  in  color,  or  stenciled  in  patterns, 
hung  family  portraits  painted  by  artists  whose 
names  are  in  many  cases  unknown  to  us,  and 


COLONIAL  HOUSES  6? 

framed  pictures  of  hunting  scenes,  still  life,  ships, 
and  humorous  subjects,  among  which  the  engrav- 
ings of  Hogarth  were  always  prime  favorites.  On 
the  chimney  breast,  above  the  mantel,  there  was 
sometimes  a  scene  or  landscape,  either  painted 
directly  on  the  wall  itself  or  executed  to  order  on 
canvas  in  England  and  brought  to  America.  There 
were  eight-day  clocks  and  mantel  clocks,  and 
sconces,  carved  and  gilt,  upstairs  and  down.  In 
the  cupboard  and  on  the  sideboard  would  be  silver 
plate  in  great  variety  and  sets  of  best  English 
china,  ivory-handled  knives  and  forks,  glass  in 
considerable  profusion,  though  glassware,  as  a  rule, 
was  not  much  used,  diaper  tablecloths  and  nap- 
kins, brass  chafing  dishes,  and  steel  plate  warmers. 
There  was  always  a  centerpiece  or  epergne  of 
silver,  glass,  or  china, 

In  the  bedrooms  were  pier  glasses  and  bedstead? 
in  many  forms  and  colors,  of  mahogany  and  othef 
woods.  Frequently  there  were  four-posters,  with 
carved  and  fluted  pillars  and  carved  cornices  or 
"  cornishes, "  as  they  were  generally  spelled.  The 
bedsteads  were  provided  with  hair  mattresses  and 
*eather  beds,  woolen  blankets,  and  linen  sheets, 
and  were  adorned  with  silk,  damask,  or  chintz 
curtains  and  valances.  Russian  gauze  or  lawn  was 


€8  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

used  for  mosquito  nets,  for  mosquitoes  were  a 
great  pest  to  the  colonists. 

On  the  Jarge  plantations  there  was  to  be  found  a 
great  variety  of  utensils  for  kitchen,  artisan,  and 
farm  use,  most  of  which  were  brought  from  Eng- 
land, but  some,  particularly  iron  pots,  axes,  and 
scythes,  from  New  England.  For  the  kitchen 
there  were  hard  metal  plates,  copper  kettles  and 
pans,  pewter  dishes  in  large  numbers,  chiefly  for 
servants'  use,  yellow  metal  spoons,  stone  bottles, 
crocks,  jugs,  mugs,  butter  pots,  and  heavy  utensils 
in  iron  for  cooking  purposes.  For  the  farm  there 
were  grindstones,  saws,  files,  knives,  axes,  adzes, 
planes,  augurs,  irons,  hayrakes,  carts,  forks,  reap- 
ing hooks,  wheat  sieves,  spades,  shovels,  watering 
pots,  plows,  plowshares,  and  moldboards,  harness 
and  traces,  harrows,  ox  chains,  and  scythes. 

The  farmer  was  thus  provided  with  all  the  im- 
plements necessary  for  mowing,  clearing  under- 
brush, and  cradling  wheat,  and  all  the  other 
essential  activities  of  an  agricultural  life.  A  wheel 
plow  is  mentioned  as  early  as  1732,  and  in  1748 
James  Crokatt,  an  influential  Charlestonian  in  Eng- 
land, sent  over  a  plow  designed  to  weed,  trench, 
sow,  and  cover  indigo,  but  of  its  construction 
we  unfortunately  know  nothing.  The  colonists 


COLONIAL  HOUSES  69 

usually  imported  such  articles  as  millstones,  as 
large  as  forty-eight  inches  in  diameter  and  fourteen 
inches  thick,  frog  spindles  and  other  parts  for  a 
tub  mill  or  gristmill,  hand  presses,  with  lignum-vitse 
rollers  for  cider,  copper  stills  with  sweat  \vorms  and 
a  capacity  as  high  as  sixty  gallons,  vats  for  indigo, 
,md  pans  for  evaporating  salt.  For  fishing  there 
were  plenty  of  rods,  lines,  hooks,  seines  with  leads 
and  corks,  and  eelpots.  In  addition  to  this  varied 
equipment,  nearly  all  the  plantations  had  outfits 
for  coopering,  tanning,  shoemaking,  and  other  ne- 
cessary occupations  of  a  somewhat  isolated  com- 
munity. Separate  buildings  were  erected  in  which 
this  artisan  work  was  done,  not  only  for  the  planter 
himself  but  also  for  his  neighbors.  Indeed  the  re- 
turns from  this  community  labor  constituted  an 
important  item  in  the  annual  statement  of  many 
a  planter's  income. 


CHAPTER  IV 

HABILIMENTS    AND    HABITS 

IN  matters  of  dress,  as  well  as  in  those  of  house 
building  and  furnishing,  the  eighteenth  century 
was  an  era  of  greatly  increased  expenditure  and 
costly  display,  of  taste  for  luxuries  and  elaborate 
adornment,  which  not  only  involved  the  wealthier 
classes  in  extravagance  beyond  their  resources  but 
also  ended  far  too  often  in  heavy  indebtedness  and 
even  in  bankruptcy.  Henry  Vassall  of  Cambridge 
and  William  Byrd,  3d,  of  Virginia  are  examples  of 
men  who  lived  beyond  their  means  and  became  in 
the  end  financially  embarrassed.  The  years  from 
1740  to  1765  represent  in  the  history  of  this 
country  the  highest  point  reached  in  richness  of 
costume,  variety  of  color,  peculiarities  of  decora- 
tion, and  excess  of  frills  and  furbelows  on  the  part 
of  both  sexes.  The  richer  classes  affected  no  re- 
publican simplicity  in  the  days  before  the  Revo- 
lution, and  while  their  standards  did  not  prevail 


HABILIMENTS  AND  HABITS  71 

beyond  town  and  tidewater,  there  were  few  who  did 
not  feel  in  some  way,  for  good  or  for  ill,  this  increas- 
ing complexity  of  the  conditions  of  colonial  life. 

To  deal  systematically  with  the  subject  of  dress 
in  colonial  times,  we  should  trace  its  changes  from 
the  beginning,  study  the  various  forms  it  assumed 
according  to  the  needs  of  climate  and  environment, 
and  describe  the  clothing  worn  by  all  classes  from 
the  negro  to  the  Governor  and  by  all  members  of 
the  family  from  the  infant  to  the  octogenarian. 
But  a  less  formal  account  of  colonial  clothing  will 
suffice  to  give  one  a  fairly  complete  idea  of  what 
our  ancestors  wore  as  they  went  about  their  daily 
occupations  and  what  they  put  on  for  such  special 
occasions  as  weddings,  funerals,  assemblies,  and 
social  entertainments.  It  is  also  interesting  to  note 
the  peculiar  garb  of  such  men  as  ministers,  judges, 
sea  captains,  and  soldiers;  for  the  judge  on  the 
bench  wore  his  robe  of  scarlet,  the  lawyer  his  suit  of 
black  velvet,  and  officials  in  office  and  represent- 
atives in  the  Assembly  donned  the  habiliments 
suited  to  the  occasion.  The  royal  Governors  were 
often  gloriously  bedecked,  their  councilors  be- 
wigged  and  befrilled,  and  Masons  in  procession  to 
their  lodges  "wore  their  clothes,"  as  one  observer 
Dut  it. 


72  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

These,  however,  were  not  the  everyday  costumes 
of  our  forefathers.  The  majority  of  the  colonists, 
•except  negroes  and  indentured  servants,  wore 
clothing  which  was  relatively  heavy  and  coarse. 
Throughout  New  England,  and  to  a  lesser  ex- 
tent elsewhere,  men,  women,  and  children  wore 
homespun,  with  linen  shirts,  tow  cloth  skirts  and 
breeches,  and  woolen  stockings.  When  they  bought 
materials,  they  selected  heavy  stuffs,  such  as  fus- 
tian,  kersey,  sagathy,  shalloon,  duffel,  drugget, 
and  serge.  By  the  middle  of  the  century,  how- 
ever, farmers  of  the  better  class  were  wearing  a 
finer  quality  of  "shop  goods,"  such  as  camblet, 
alamode,  calamanco,  and  blue  broadcloth.  Perhaps 
the  most  widely  used  imported  cloth  was  "ozen- 
brig, "  a  tough,  coarse  linen  woven  in  Osnabriick, 
Westphalia,  which  they  made  up  into  nearly  every- 
thing from  breeches  and  entire  suits  to  sheets, 
table  covers,  and  carpetbags.  The  village  parson 
wore  broadcloth  when  performing  the  duties  of 
his  office,  and  two  suits  of  this  material  every  six 
years  was  a  fair  average.  For  every  day  he  wore 
the  homespun  of  his  parishioners.  Buckskin  and 
lambskin  breeches  were  common;  and  deerskin,  of 
which  much  of  the  clothing  of  our  early  ancestors 
was  made,  was  later  used  for  coats  by  those  who 


HABILIMENTS  AND  HABITS  73 

weie  exposed  to  wind  and  weather.  Stockings, 
which  generally  came  over  the  knee,  were  blue, 
black,  or  gray,  and  might  be  of  worsted,  cotton, 
or  cloth.  Shoes,  often  of  the  coarsest  kind, 
double-soled  and  made  of  cowhide,  were  made 
either  at  home  or  by  village  shoemakers  who 
were  also  cobblers,  or,  after  the  middle  of  the 
century,  at  such  towns  as  Lynn.  A  great  many 
of  the  farming  people,  however,  went  barefoot 
in  summer. 

The  NewEnglander  usually  possessed  three  suits 
of  clothes:  the  durable  and  practical  suit  which 
he  wore  for  working;  a  second-best  which  he  put 
on  for  going  to  market  or  for  doing  errands  in 
town;  and  his  best  which  he  reserved  for  the  Sab- 
bath-Day1 and  preserved  with  the  utmost  care. 
In  both  town  and  country,  clothing  was  made  at 
home  by  the  women  and  help,  or  was  cut  out  after 
the  local  fashion  by  the  village  tailor  or  seamstress, 
who  brought  shears  and  goose  with  them  to  the 
house,  while  the  family  provided  material,  thread, 
and  board.  Suits  rarely  fitted  the  wearer,  altera- 
tions  were  common,  and  the  same  cloth  was  used 
for  one  member  of  the  family  after  another  until  it 

1  People  in  New  England  always  said  Sabbath  or  Lord's  Day; 
Sunday  came  in  only  late  in  the  period  among  "the  better  sort. " 


74  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

was  completely  worn  out.    Patching  and  turning 
were  evidences  of  thrift  and  economy. 

Apprentices,  indentured  servants,  and  negroes  in 
the  North  dressed  in  much  the  same  way  as  did  their 
"betters"  but  in  clothes  of  poorer  quality  and  cut, 
often  made  over  from  the  discarded  garments  of 
their  masters.  In  the  South,  what  were  called 
"plains"  were  imported  in  large  quantities  for  the 
negroes,  those  in  the  house  wearing  blue  jacket  and 
breeches  and  those  in  the  field  generally  white. 
Frequently  the  negroes  worked  with  almost  noth- 
ing on,  and  Josiah  Quincy  narrates  how  he  was 
rowed  over  Hobcaw  Ferry,  in  South  Carolina,  by 
six  negroes,  "four  of  whom  had  nothing  on  but 
their  kind  of  breeches,  scarce  sufficient  for  cover- 
ing. "*  When  a  servant  or  negro  ran  away,  he  put 
on  everything  that  he  had  or  could  steal,  and  such  a 
fugitive  must  have  been  a  grotesque  sight.  One 
runaway  servant  is  described  as  wearing  a  gray 
rabbit-skin  hat  with  a  clasp  to  it,  a  periwig  of 
bright  brown  hair,  a  close  serge  coat,  breeches  of 
a  brownish  color,  worsted  stockings,  and  wooden- 
heeled  shoes.  One  apprentice  ran  away  wearing 
an  old  brown  drugget  coat  and  a  pair  of  leather 
breeches  and  carrying  in  addition  two  ozenbrig 

1  Quincy,  Southern  Journal,  1773. 


HABILIMENTS  AND  HABITS  75 

shirts  and  two  pairs  of  trousers  of  the  same  mate- 
rial. An  escaped  negro  was  advertised  as  dressed 
in  shirt,  jacket,  and  breeches,  woolen  stockings, 
old  shoes,  and  an  old  hat,  and  wearing  a  silver  jewel 
in  one  of  his  ears.  Earrings  or  bobs  in  one  or  both 
ears  were  frequent  negro  adornments. 

The  steady  advance  toward  more  ornate  and 
picturesque  dress  which  began  to  be  evident  in 
colonial  life  was  due  to  closer  contact  with  the  West 
Indies  and  the  Old  World.  The  Puritans  had  be- 
gun as  early  as  1675  to  protest  against  the  follies  of 
dress.  Roger  Wolcott  of  Connecticut,  in  his  mem- 
oir written  in  1759,  speaks  with  regret  of  early 
times  in  the  colony  and  bewails  the  loss  of  the  sim- 
plicity and  honesty  which  the  people  had  when  he 
was  a  boy.  Toward  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  he  says,  "their  buildings  were  good  to 
what  they  had  been,  but  mean  to  what  they  are 
now;  their  dress  and  diet  mean  and  coarse  to  what 
it  is  now,"  and  their  regard  for  the  Sabbath  and 
reverence  for  the  magistrates  far  greater  than  in  his 
day.  To  the  Quaker  also  the  growing  worldliness 
of  the  times  was  a  cause  of  depression  and  lament. 
Peckover,  writing  of  his  travels  in  1742,  though 
proud  that  the  Quakers  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Annapolis  were  accounted  "pretty  topping  people 


76  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

in  the  world,"  nevertheless  regretted  that  they 
took  so  much  liberty  "in  launching  into  finery. " 
and  believed  that  some  of  the  children  went  "in 
apparel  much  finer  and  more  untruthlike  than  most 
I  ever  saw  in  England. "  The  richer  planters  and 
merchants  not  only  wore  foreign  fabrics  but  de- 
liberately copied  foreign  fashions.  Eddis,  writing 
from  Annapolis  in  1771,  was  of  the  opinion  that 
a  new  fashion  was  adopted  in  America  even  ear- 
lier than  in  England,  and  he  saw  very  little  differ- 
ence "in  the  manner  of  a  wealthy  colonist  and  a 
wealthy  Briton. " 

A  thousand  and  one  articles  from  the  great 
manufacturing  towns  of  England  —  London,  Bris- 
tol, Birmingham,  Sheffield,  Nottingham,  Liverpool, 
Manchester,  Torrington,  and  other  centers  — 
were  brought  in  almost  every  ship  that  set  sail  for 
America.  Scarcely  a  letter  went  from  a  Virginia 
planter  or  a  Boston,  New  York,  or  Philadelphia 
merchant  which  did  not  contain  a  personal  order 
for  articles  of  clothing  for  himself  or  his  family,  and 
scarcely  a  captain  sailed  for  England  who  did  not 
carry  commissions  of  one  kind  or  another.  The 
very  names  of  the  fabrics  which  the  colonists 
bought  show  the  extent  of  this  early  trade :  Holland 
lawn,  linen,  duck,  and  blankets,  German  serge, 


HABILIMENTS  AND  HABITS  77 

Osnaburg  linen,  Mecklenburg  silk,  Barcelona  silk 
handkerchiefs,  Flanders  thread,  Spanish  poplin, 
Russian  lawn  and  sheeting,  Hungarian  stuff, 
Romal  or  Bombay  handkerchiefs,  Scottish  tartans 
and  cloths,  and  Irish  linen. 

Colonel  Thomas  Jones  in  1726  sent  in  one  order 
for  four  pairs  of  "  stagg  "  breeches,  one  fine  Geneva 
serge  suit,  one  fine  cloth  suit  lined  with  scarlet,  one 
fine  drab  cloth  coat  and  breeches,  one  gray  cloth 
suit,  a  drugget  coat  and  breeches,  a  frieze  coat, 
and  several  pairs  of  calamanco  breeches  and  cloth 
breeches  with  silver  holes.  William  Beverley,  at 
different  times,  ordered  a  plain  suit  of  very  fine 
cloth,  a  summer  suit  of  some  other  stuff  than  silk, 
with  stocks  to  match,  a  winter  riding  suit,  a  suit 
of  superfine  unmixed  broadcloth,  a  pair  of  riding 
breeches  with  silk  stockings,  a  great  riding  coat, 
three  Holland  waistcoats  with  pockets,  round- 
toed  pumps,  a  pair  of  half  jack  boots,  a  beaver  hat 
without  stiffening,  a  light  colored  bobwig,  knit 
hose  to  wear  under  others,  and  many  pairs  of 
kid  and  buckskin  gloves.  Later,  he  sent  back 
the  hose,  "damnifyed  in  the  voyage,"  to  be  dyed 
black  and  another  pair  that  were  too  large  in  the 
calf,  "I  having  but  a  slender  body  as  you  know 
by  my  measure."  He  also  found  fault  with  the 


78  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

boots,  remarking,  "I  am  but  slender  and  my  leg 
is  not  short. " 

For  his  wife  Beverley  ordered  a  suit  of  lutestring 
appropriate  for  a  woman  of  forty  years,  a  whale- 
bone coat,  a  hoop  coat,  a  sarsenet  quilted  coat  of 
any  color  but  yellow,  white  tabby  stays,  a  suit  of 
"drest  night  cloaths  or  a  mob,  ruffles,  and  hand- 
kerchief, "  pairs  of  calamanco  shoes,  flowered  stuff 
damask  shoes,  and  silk  shoes  with  silk  heels,  col- 
ored kid  gloves  and  mittens,  straw  hats,  thread, 
worsted,  and  pearl-colored  silk  hose,  paduasoy  rib- 
bons, and  crewels  for  embroidering  suit  patterns. 
For  his  daughter  he  wished  a  whole  Holland  frock, 
a  plain  lutestring  coat,  a  genteel  suit  of  flowered 
silk  cloth  or  "whatever  is  fashionable,"  a  quilted 
petticoat,  a  cheap,  plain  riding  habit,  a  head-dress, 
but  if  head-dresses  were  no  longer  fashionable  then 
a  mobcap  with  ribbons.  For  other  children  he 
wanted  calamanco  or  silk  shoes  in  considerable 
variety,  sometimes  ordering  fine  thin  black  calf- 
skins or  skins  of  white  leather  to  be  made  up  into 
children's  shoes  on  the  plantation,  hats  with  sil- 
ver laces,  colored  hose,  and  colored  gloves.  Even 
members  of  the  fair  sex  tried  their  own  hand  at 
foreign  purchase,  for  we  are  told  that  Sarah  Bui- 
finch  of  Boston  sent  five  pounds  sterling  in  silver 


HABILIMENTS  AND  HABITS  79 

and  one  pound  seventeen  shillings  in  pennies  to 
pay  for  purchases  in  London  by  a  captain  who  was 
to  buy  the  goods  himself  or  to  send  the  order  to 
some  London  merchant. 

Such  an  account  of  purchases  could  easily  be  ex- 
tended, but  enough  has  been  said  to  show  the  gen- 
eral character  of  the  orders  and  the  dependence  of 
the  colonial  planter  and  his  family  on  the  captain 
or  the  English  merchant  for  fit,  style,  and  color. 
The  suits,  which  were  made  as  a  rule  in  London  by  a 
special  tailor  or  dressmaker  who  had  the  measures, 
could  never  be  tried  on  or  fitted  beforehand  nor 
could  their  suitability  in  the  matter  of  color  and 
style  be  determined  with  any  degree  of  satisfac- 
tion. The  English  correspondents  in  their  letters 
interspersed  their  comments  on  trade  with  fre- 
quent suggestions  regarding  dress  and  fashions, 
and  one  remarked,  for  example,  that  "the  French 
heads  are  little  wore,  mostly  English,  the  hoops 
very  small,  upper  petticoats  of  but  four  yards,  the 
gowns  unlined. "  These  old  country  correspond- 
ents and  the  obliging  captains  must  at  times  have 
indulged  in  some  puzzling  shopping  expeditions  in 
London.  Orders  for  a  hat,  "genteel  but  not  very 
gay, "  and  for  hats  and  shoes  for  children  of  certain 
ages  but  with  the  material  and  shape  unspecified 


80  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

would  call  for  the  exercise  of  considerable  discre- 
tion on  a  man's  part,1  and  one  is  not  surprised 
that  complaints  usually  followed  the  receipt  of  the 
goods  in  America.  Stockings  were  said  to  be  too 
large,  boots  too  small,  hats  too  stiff  or  too  soft 
or  wrongly  trimmed,  leather  rotten,  and  qual- 
ity, colors,  and  patterns  different  from  what  was 
wanted.  Only  to  those  who  frequented  the  colo- 
nial stores  where  pattern  books  sent  from  England 
were  to  be  found  was  satisfaction  guaranteed. 
Goods  were  often  damaged  on  the  voyage,  and 
Beverley  once  wrote,  "Goods  received  last  spring 
damnified  and  (to  cap  the  climax)  have  filled  my 
house  with  cockroaches." 

1  That  men  shopped  in  America  as  well  as  in  England  appears 
from  the  following  letter  sent  by  a  New  England  minister  to  his  be- 
trothed one  week  before  the  wedding: 

"MADAM: 

"I  received  a  line  from  you  by  Mrs.  Shepard  with  your  request 
of  purchasing  a  few  small  articles.  I  have  bought  3^  dozen  of  limes 
—  and  gauze  for  ruffles,  but  not  plain.  I  asked  Miss  Polly  Chase 
which  was  the  most  fashionable  and  best  for  Ladies  ruffles  and  she 
told  me  that  pink  ruffled  gauze  was  preferable,  —  and  as  she  is  ac- 
quainted with  such  little  feminine  matters,  I  bought  what  she  rec- 
ommended, and  hope  it  will  please  you.  I  have  got  no  edging  for 
trimming  them  because  there  is  no  need  of  it  with  such  flowered 
gauze.  I  have  got  some  narrow  silk  ribbon  to  trim  your  apron  with, 
but  I  did  not  know  whether  it  should  be  white  or  black,  nor  what 
kind  of  an  Apron  you  were  about  to  trim.  But  I  hope  I  have  got 
that  which  will  be  agreeable  to  your  gauze,  or  whatever  youf  apron 
is  to  be  made  of."  (From  a  MS  in  private  hands.) 


HABILIMENTS  AND  HABITS  81 

The  colors  worn  by  the  men  were  often  varied 
and  bright.  Cuyler  of  New  York  ordered  a  suit  of 
superfine  scarlet  plush,  with  shalloon  and  all  trim- 
mings, a  coat  and  vest  of  light  blue  hair  plush  with 
all  trimmings,  and  fine  shalloon  suitable  for  each. 
One  merchant  wanted  a  claret-colored  duffel,  an- 
other a  gay  broadcloth  coat,  vest,  and  breeches, 
and  still  another  two  pieces  of  colored  gingham 
for  a  summer  suit.  All  clothes,  even  those  which 
were  fairly  simple  and  worn  by  people  of  moderate 
means,  were  adorned  with  buttons  made  of  brass 
and  other  metals,  pearl,  or  cloth  covered. 

In  addition  to  damask  and  silk  stuffs,  the  women 
wore  calico  and  gingham  printed  in  checks,  pat- 
terns, and  figures  —  dots,  shells,  or  diamonds  — • 
which  on  one  occasion  Stephen  Collins  complained 
were  too  large  and  flaunting  to  suit  the  Philadel- 
phia market.  Sometimes  a  pattern  was  stamped 
on  the  cloth  in  London  and  was  worked  with  crewel 
or  floss  in  the  colonies.  Women's  hats  were  made 
of  silk  or  straw,  their  hoods  of  velvet  or  silk,  and 
their  stockings  of  silk  thread,  cotton,  worsted, 
and  even  "plush."  Shoes  were  often  very  elabo- 
rate, with  uppers  of  silk  or  damask,  and  those  for 
girls  were  made  of  leather  —  calfskin,  kid,  or  mo- 
rocco —  with  silver  laces  and  heels  of  wood  covered 


82  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

with  silk.  Gloves,  which  were  worn  from  infancy 
to  old  age  partly  for  reasons  of  fashion  and  partly 
to  preserve  the  whiteness  of  the  skin,  were  some- 
times imported  and  sometimes  made  by  the  local 
tailor,  who  like  the  blacksmith  was  a  craftsman  of 
many  accomplishments. 

As  for  minor  adornments,  the  ladies  carried  fans 
and  wore  girdles  with  buckles;  but  as  a  rule  they 
possessed  little  jewelry  except  necklaces  and  a  va- 
riety of  finger  rings  either  of  plain  gold  or  set 
Tvith  diamonds  or  rubies,  and  an  occasional  thumb 
ring.  The  men  also  wore  rings,  commonly  bearing 
a  seal  of  carnelian  cut  with  the  wearer's  arms  or 
some  other  device.  Many  of  the  mourning  rings 
were  realistically  made  with  death's  heads.  As  can 
be  seen  from  the  advertisements  of  the  jewelers, 
the  wearing  of  jewelry  became  much  more  common 
after  1750,  earrings  appeared,  and  even  knee  buckles 
and  shoe  buckles  tended  to  become  very  ornate. 

Underwear  and  lingerie  in  the  modern  sense  were 
almost  unknown  and,  though  "nightgowns"  are 
mentioned,  it  is  uncertain  whether  they  were  de- 
signed for  sleeping  purposes  or,  as  is  more  likely, 
for  dressing  gowns  or  my  lady's  toilet.  For  out- 
side wear  for  the  men  there  were  great  coats;  and 
for  the  women  coats  and  mantillas,  often  scarlet 


HABILIMENTS  AND  HABITS  8?. 

and  blue;  and  for  children,  older  folk,  and  soldiers, 
there  were  splatterdashes,  a  legging  made  of  black 
glazed  linen  and  reaching  to  the  knee  to  protect 
the  stockings.  Men  wore  oilcloth  capes  when 
traveling  in  the  rain,  and  the  women  put  on  a  pro- 
tective petticoat,  sometimes  called  a  weather  skirt, 
and  wore  clogs  or  pattens  against  the  mud.  Um- 
brellas are  mentioned  early  in  the  century,  but 
they  were  probably  only  carriage  tops,  awnings,  or 
sunshades.  Parasols  were  used  by  a  few,  but  sun- 
bonnets  —  calashes  —  were  customary  on  sunny 
days.  Wigs  were  worn  by  men  of  all  ranks,  even 
by  servants,  and  wig  and  peruke  makers  were  to 
be  found  in  all  the  large  towns.  Wig  blocks  fre- 
quently appear  among  the  invoices,  and  before  the 
queue  came  in  many  of  the  fashionable  folk  used 
bags  for  the  hair.  Lasts  for  making  shoes,  liquid 
blacking,  and  shoebrushes  as  well  as  hairbrushes 
were  usually  imported. 

In  traveling,  men  carried  clean  shirts,  w^aist- 
coats,  and  caps,  and  —  most  interesting  of  all  — 
clean  sheets,  but  only  occasionally  clean  stockings 
and  handkerchiefs.  Soap  was  frequently  included 
in  invoices,  much  of  it  made  in  New  England.  All 
Southern  plantations  had  soap  houses,  with  large 
copper  vessels  and  other  utensils  in  which  soap  WPS 


&*•  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

made  for  laundry  purposes.  Wash  balls  were  im- 
ported possibly  for  domestic  use,  but  they  were 
also  an  important  part  of  the  barber's  outfit.  Men 
had  their  own  razors  and  hones  and  shaved  them- 
selves, but  those  of  the  richer  classes  either  went 
to  the  barber,  at  so  much  a  quarter,  or  had  the 
barber  come  to  their  houses. 

Of  indoor  bathing  it  is  difficult  to  find  any  trace. 
There  were  bathing  pools  on  some  of  the  Southern 
plantations,  and  swimming  holes  abounded  then  as 
now,  but  probably  bathtubs  were  entirely  unknown 
and  "washing"  was  as  far  as  the  colonists'  ablu- 
tions went. 

The  toothbrush  had  not  yet  been  invented,  but 
tooth  washes  and  tooth  powders  were  in  use  as 
early  as  1718.  We  read,  for  instance,  of  the  Es- 
sence of  Pearl,  guaranteed  to  do  everything  for  the 
teeth ;  of  the  Dentium  Conservator ;  and  of  another 
preparation,  of  which  the  name  is  not  given  but 
which  was  to  be  rubbed  on  with  a  cloth  once  a  day, 
with  the  injunction,  however,  that  "if  you'd  pre- 
serve their  beauty  use  it  only  twice  a  week. "  Salt 
and  water  was  the  commonest  dentifrice.  That 
these  prophylactics  were  not  very  successful  is 
evident  from  the  prevalent  toothache  and  decay 
which  necessitated  frequent  pulling  and  an  early 


HABILIMENTS  AND  HABITS  85 

"esort  to  false  teeth.  There  were  many  individuals 
in  the  colonies  who  made  such  teeth  and  fastened 
them  in,  though  dentistry  was  as  yet  hardly  a  voca- 
tion by  itself.  The  apothecaries,  the  doctors,  and 
even  the  barbers  pulled  teeth,  and  some  of  them 
posed  as  dentists.  The  goldsmiths  advertised  false 
teeth  for  sale.  Spectacles  or  "spactickels,"  as  one 
writer  spells  them,  were  ordinarily  used  when  neces- 
sary, and  ear  trumpets  were  occasionally  resorted 
to  by  the  deaf. 

Interesting  and  picturesque  as  are  these  mani- 
fold details  of  household  equipment  and  personal 
use  in  the  old  colonial  days,  it  is  the  color  and 
energy  of  the  daily  life  of  the  people  of  that  time 
which  make  a  deeper  appeal  to  the  reader  of  the 
twentieth  century.  Among  the  poorer  colonists, 
who  composed  nine-tenths  of  the  colonial  popula- 
tion, life  was  a  humdrum  round  of  activities  on  the 
farm  and  in  the  shop.  In  the  houses  of  the  rich, 
women  concerned  themselves  with  their  household 
duties,  dress,  and  embroidery  of  all  kinds.  In  some 
instances  they  managed  the  estate,  engaged  in 
business,  and  even  took  part  in  politics.  In  the 
towns  many  of  the  retail  stores  were  conducted 
by  women.  Ruth  Richardson  of  Talbot  County, 
Maryland,  carried  on  her  husband's  affairs  after 


86  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

his  death,  and  Martha  Custis,  before  her  marriage 
with  George  Washington,  continued  the  corre- 
spondence and  administered  the  plantation  of  her 
first  husband,  who  died  in  1757.  Madam  Smith, 
wife  of  the  second  landgrave,  was  another  famous 
manager.  In  1732,  Mrs.  Andrew  Galbraith  of 
Donegal,  Pennsylvania,  took  part  in  her  husband's 
political  campaign,  mounted  her  favorite  mare, 
Nelly,  and  with  a  spur  at  her  heel  and  her  red 
cloak  flying  in  the  wind  scoured  the  country  from 
one  end  to  the  other.  Needless  to  say,  Andrew 
was  elected. 

Colonial  marriages  took  place  at  even  so  early 
an  age  as  fourteen;  and  the  number  of  men  and 
women  who  were  married  two,  three,  and  four 
times  was  large.  Instances  of  a  thrice  widower 
marrying  a  twice  or  thrice  widow  are  not  uncom- 
mon. Girls  thus  became  the  mothers  of  children 
before  they  were  out  of  their  'teens.  Sarah  Hext 
married  Dr.  John  Rutledge  when  she  was  four- 
teen and  was  the  mother  of  seven  children  before 
she  was  twenty-five.  Ursula  Byrd,  who  married 
Robert  Beverley,  had  a  son  and  died  before  she 
^vas  seventeen;  Sarah  Breck  was  only  sixteen  or 
seventeen  when  she  married  Dr.  Benjamin  Gott; 
Sarah  Pierrepont  was  seventeen  when  she  married 


HABILIMENTS  AND  HABITS  87 

Jonathan  Edwards;  and  Hannah  Gardiner  was  of 
the  same  age  when  she  married  Dr.  McSparran, 
Large  families,  even  of  twenty-six  children  of  a 
single  mother,  are  recorded,  but  infant  mortality 
was  very  great.  John  Coleman  and  Judith  Hobby 
had  fourteen  children,  of  whom  five  died  at 
birth,  and  only  four  grew  up  and  married,  one  to 
the  well-known  Dr.  Thomas  Bulfinch  of  Boston. 
Though  Sarah  Hext  lived  to  be  sixty-eight,  many 
mothers  died  early,  and  often  in  childbirth.  An 
instance  is  given  of  a  burying  ground  near  Bath, 
Maine,  in  which  there  were  the  graves  of  ten 
married  women,  eight  of  whom  had  died  between 
the  ages  of  twenty-two  and  thirty,  probably  as 
the  result  of  large  families  and  overwork.  Second 
marriages  were  the  rule,  though  probably  few  were 
as  sudden  as  that  of  the  Sandemanian,  Isaac  Wins- 
low,  who  proposed  to  Ben  Davis's  daughter  on  the 
eve  of  the  day  he  buried  his  wife  and  married  her 
within  a  week. 

The  marriage  ceremony  generally  took  place  at 
home  instead  of  in  the  church,  and  in  many  of  the 
colonies  was  followed  by  a  bountiful  supper,  cards, 
and  dancing.  There  were  often  bridesmaids,  dia- 
mond wedding-rings,  and  elaborate  hospitality. 
In  New  England  the  festivities  lasted  two  or  three 


88  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

days  and  visitors  stayed  a  week.  In  the  South  one 
proposing  to  marry  had  to  give  bond  that  the 
marriage  would  not  result  in  a  charge  on  the  com- 
munity, and  usually  the  banns  were  read  three 
times  in  meeting  and  a  license  was  obtained  and 
recorded.  In  Virginia,  where  the  county  clerks 
granted  licenses,  children  under  age  could  not 
marry  without  the  consent  of  their  parents,  and 
indentured  servants  could  not  marry  during  their 
servitude.  In  Connecticut  the  banns  were  pub- 
lished but  once  and  protests  against  a  marriage 
were  affixed  to  the  signpost  or  the  church  door. 
Blanks  for  licenses  were  distributed  by  the  Gover- 
nor and  could  be  obtained  of  the  local  authorities. 
A  curious  custom  was  that  of  "bundling"  (some- 
times also  called  "tarrying,"  though  the  practices 
seem  to  have  been  different),  which  Burnaby  de- 
scribes as  putting  the  courting  couple  into  bed 
with  garments  on  to  prevent  scandal,  when  "if  the 
parties  agree,  it  is  all  very  well ;  the  banns  are  pub- 
lished and  [the  two]  are  married  without  delay." 
Another  curious  custom,  which  prevailed  from  New 
England  to  South  Carolina,  made  the  second  hus- 
band responsible  for  the  debts  of  the  first,  un- 
less the  bride  were  married  in  her  chemise  in  the 
King's  Highway.  In  one  instance  the  lady  stood 


HABILIMENTS  AND  HABITS  88 

in  a  closet  and  extended  her  hand  through  the  door5 
and  in  another,  well  authenticated,  both  chemise 
and  closet  were  dispensed  with. 

Divorces  were  rare:  the  Anglican  Church  re- 
fused to  sanction  them,  and  the  Crown  forbade 
colonial  legislatures  to  pass  bills  granting  them. 
The  matter  was  therefore  left  to  the  courts.  As 
New  England  courts  refused  to  break  a  will,  so,  as 
a  rule,  they  refused  to  grant  a  divorce,  though  there 
are  a  number  of  exceptions,  for  divorces  were  al- 
lowed in  both  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut.1 
In  the  case  of  unhappy  marriages,  separation  by 
mutual  agreement  was  occasionally  resorted  to. 
Sometimes  the  lady  ran  away;  and,  indeed,  ad- 
vertisements for  runaway  wives  seem  almost  as 
common  in  Southern  newspapers  as  those  for  run- 
away servants.  Marriages  between  colonial  women 
and  English  officials,  missionaries  of  the  Society 
for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel,  and  even  occa- 
sional visitors  from  abroad  were  not  infrequent. 
Sir  William  Draper,  Knight  of  the  Bath,  who  made 
an  American  tour  in  1770,  wooed  and  won  during 
his  journey  Susanna,  daughter  of  Oliver  De  Lancey 
of  New  York. 

1  "I  was  at  court  al  day  about  geting  Sister  Mary  divorced  & 
obtained  it. "  Hempstead,  Diary,  p.  147. 


90  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

Family  life  in  the  colonies  was  full  of  affection, 
though  the  expression  of  feeling  was  usually  re- 
strained and  formal.  Colonel  Thomas  Jones,  for 
example,  addressed  his  fiancee,  Elizabeth  Cocke 
—  a  widow,  and  a  niece  of  Mark  Catesby  the 
naturalist  —  as  "Madam"  or  "Dearest  Madam'7 
during  their  engagement,  though  after  their  mar- 
riage his  greeting  was  "My  dearest  Life."  One  of 
his  wife's  letters  the  gallant  and  devoted  Jones  read 
over  "about  twenty  times,"  and  his  correspond- 
ence with  her  contains  such  gems  of  solicitude  as 
this:  "If  my  heart  could  take  a  flight  from  the 
imprisonment  of  a  worthless  carcasse  little  better 
than  durt,  it  should  whisper  to  you  in  your  slum- 
bers the  truth  of  my  soul,  that  you  may  be  agree- 
ably surprised  with  the  luster  of  ccelestial  visions 
surrounding  you  on  every  side  with  presents  of 
joy  and  comfort  in  one  continued  sleep,  till  the 
sparkling  rays  of  the  sun  puts  you  in  mind  with 
him  to  bless  the  earth  with  your  presence. "  Rich- 
ard Stockton,  writing  to  his  wife  Emilia  from 
London  in  1760,  said  that  he  had  "been  running  to 
every  American  coffee-house  to  see  if  any  vessels 
are  bound  to  your  side  of  the  water,"  and  added: 
"I  see  not  an  obliging  tender  wife  but  the  image  of 
my  dear  Emilia  is  full  in  view;  I  see  not  a  haughty, 


HABILIMENTS  AND  HABITS  91 

imperious,  and  ignorant  dame  but  I  rejoice  that 
the  partner  of  my  life  is  so  much  the  opposite. " 

Affection  for  children  was  not  often  openly  ex- 
pressed in  New  England,  though  ample  testimony 
shows  that  it  existed.  Children  were  repressed  in 
mind  as  well  as  in  body,  and  their  natural  and 
youthful  spirits  were  generally  ascribed  to  original 
sin.  Toward  their  parents  their  attitude  was  de- 
corous in  the  extreme.  Deborah  Jeffries  addressed 
her  father  as  "Hond  Sir"  and  wrote:  "I  was  much 
pleased  to  hear  my  letters  were  agreeable  to  you 
and  mama,  I  shall  always  do  my  endeavour  to 
please  such  kind  and  tender  parents."  Education 
and  punishment  in  colonial  days  went  frequently 
hand  in  hand,  and  servants  and  children  were  often 
created  with  extreme  harshness.  Whipping  was  the 
universal  remedy  for  misbehavior  and  was  resorted 
to  on  all  occasions  in  the  case  of  children  in  their 
early  years,  of  servants  throughout  the  period  of 
their  indenture,  and  of  negroes  during  their  whole 
lives.  Yet  one  cannot  read  Colonel  Jones's  refer- 
ence to  "these  two  dear  pledges  of  your  love, "  in  a 
letter  to  his  wife,  or  William  Beverley's  lament  for 
his  son  who  died,  as  he  thought,  for  lack  of  care 
when  away  from  home,  without  realizing  the  depth 
*>f  parental  love  in  colonial  time,s. 


92  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

Sickness,  death,  and  the  frailties  of  human  life 
were  perennial  subjects  of  conversation  and  corre- 
spondence and  few  family  letters  of  those  days 
were  free  from  allusions  to  them.  From  infancy  to 
old  age  death  took  ample  toll  —  so  great  was  the 
colonial  disregard  for  the  laws  of  sanitation,  so 
little  the  attention  paid  to  drainage  and  disinfec- 
tion. The  human  system  was  dosed  and  physicked 
until  it  could  hold  no  more.  Governor  Ogle  of 
Maryland  said  of  his  predecessor  that  he  took 
more  physic  than  any  one  he  had  ever  known  in 
his  life,  and  Maria  Byrd  was  accustomed  to 
swallow  "an  abundance  of  phynite, "  whatever 
that  was.  Every  home  had  its  medicine  chest, 
either  made  up  in  England  at  Apothecaries'  Hall  or 
supplied  by  some  near-by  druggist,  who  furnished 
the  necessary  "chymical  and  galenical  medicines." 
Joseph  Cuthbert  of  Savannah,  for  example,  fitted 
up  boxes  of  medicines,  with  directions  for  use  on 
the  plantation.  Medicinal  herbs  were  dispensed 
by  Indian  doctors,  and  popular  concoctions  were 
taken  in  large  doses  by  credulous  people.  Madam 
Smith  wrote  that  the  juice  of  the  Jerusalem  oak 
had  cured  all  the  negro  children  on  the  plantation 
of  a  distemper  and  that  several  negroes  had  drunk 
as  much  as  half  a  pint  of  it  at  a  time.  Nostrums 


HABILIMENTS  AND  HABITS  93 

quack  remedies,  and  proprietary  medicines  made 
by  a  secret  formula  were  very  common.  We  read 
of  Ward's  Anodyne  Pearls  to  be  worn  as  necklaces 
by  children  at  teething  time,  of  the  Bezoar  stone 
for  curing  serpent  bites,  of  Seneca  Snake  Root, 
Bateman's  Pectoral  Drops,  Turlington's  Original 
Balsam,  Duffy's  Elixir,  Countess  Kent's  Powder, 
Anderson's  Pills,  Boerhaave's  Chymical  Tincture, 
and  other  specifics  to  be  given  in  allopathic  doses. 
Jesuits'  bark,  salt  wormwood,  sweet  basil,  iron, 
treacle,  calomel,  flos  unguent,  sal  volatile  salts, 
and  rhubarb  were  on  the  family  lists;  and  here  and 
there  were  resorts  where  people  drank  medicinal 
waters  or  used  them  for  bathing. 

The  prominent  place  which  death  occupied  in 
colonial  thought  and  experience  gave  to  funerals- 
the  character  of  social  functions  and  public  events. 
They  were  objects  of  general  interest  and  were 
usually  attended  by  crowds  of  people.  Children 
were  allowed  to  attend,  often  as  pallbearers,  that 
they  might  be  impressed  with  the  significance  of 
death  as  the  inevitable  end  of  a  life  of  trial  and 
probation.  Everywhere,  before  the  reaction  of  the 
sixties,  funerals  were  occasions  of  expense  and  ex- 
travagant display.  It  was  unusual  to  find  Robert 
Hume  of  Charleston  declaring  in  his  will  that  his 


94  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

funeral  should  not  cost  over  ten  pounds,  that  the 
coffin  should  be  plain  and  not  covered  by  a  pall, 
and  that  none  of  his  relatives  should  wear  mourn- 
ing. Occasionally  a  colonist  expressed  the  wish  to 
be  buried  without  pomp  or  funeral  sermon,  but 
such  a  preference  was  rare.  The  giving  of  gloves, 
rings,  and  scarves  was  provided  for  in  nearly  every 
will,  and  it  is  easy  to  believe  the  report  that  some  of 
the  clergy  accumulated  these  articles  by  the  hun- 
dred. Drinking,  even  to  the  point  of  intoxication, 
at  funerals  became  such  a  scandal  that  ministers  in 
New  England  thundered  at  the  practice  from  the 
pulpit,  and  Edmund  Watts  in  Virginia  was  moved 
to  declare  in  his  will  that  "no  strong  drinke  be 
provided  or  spent"  when  he  was  buried.  But  the 
custom  was  too  deep  seated  to  be  easily  eradicated. 
The  dead  were  buried  in  the  burying  ground 
or  churchyard,  though  private  burial  places  were 
customary  on  the  plantations  and  in  many  parts  of 
northern  New  York  and  New  England.  At  An- 
napolis a  lot  in  the  churchyard  was  leased  at  a 
nominal  rent,  but  interment  within  the  church 
was  allowed  for  a  consideration  which  was  possible 
only  to  people  of  wealth  and  which  went  to  the 
rector.  A  potter's  field  seems  hardly  to  have  been 
known  in  colonial  times,  for  we  are  told  that  t?ie 


HABILIMENTS  AND  HABITS  95 

poorer  classes  and  negroes  in  Baltimore  buried 
their  "deceased  relations  and  acquaintances  in 
several  streets  and  allies"  of  the  town,  and  that 
not  until  1792  was  a  special  section  set  apart  for 
their  use.  A  suicide  was  interred  at  a  crossroads 
and  a  stake  was  driven  through  the  body.  Usually, 
except  among  the  Quakers,  stones,  table  monu- 
ments, and  headpieces  were  erected  over  the  dead 
and  often  bore  elaborate  and  curious  inscriptions 
and  carvings  more  or  less  crude.  The  common- 
est materials,  freestone,  syenite,  and  slate,  were 
.isually  quarried  in  the  colonies,  though  marble 
was  always  brought  from  England.  Martha  Cus- 
tis  procured  in  London  a  marble  tomb  for  her 
first  husband,  and  William  Beverley  directed  that 
a  stone  of  this  material  be  imported  for  his  father's 
grave.  Vaults  were  constructed  by  those  who 
could  afford  them  and  were  widely  used  in  the 
North  in  the  eighteenth  century. 


CHAPTER  V 

EVERYDAY  NEEDS  AND   DIVERSIONS 

THERE  was  no  want  of  food  in  colonial  house^ 
holds  and  little  scarcity  or  threatened  famine  in 
the  land  of  our  forefathers.  Though  the  Southern 
and  West  Indian  colonists  paid  but  little  attention 
to  the  raising  of  the  more  important  food  staples, 
they  were  able  to  obtain  an  adequate  supply 
through  channels  of  distribution  which  remained 
almost  unchanged  throughout  the  colonial  period. 
The  provisions  of  New  England  and  the  flour,  beef, 
pork,  and  peas  of  New  York  and  Pennsylvania 
were  carried  wherever  they  were  wanted  and  satis- 
fied the  demands  of  those  who  were  otherwise  ab- 
sorbed in  the  cultivation  of  tobacco,  rice,  indigo, 
and  sugar.  The  greatest  difficulty  lay  in  the  pres- 
ervation of  perishable  foods,  for  the  colonists  had 
as  yet  no  adequate  means  of  keeping  fresh  their 
meats  and  provisions.  In  the  outlying  districts, 
where  supplies  were  irregular,  many  a  family  lived 

96 


EVERYDAY  NEEDS  AND  DIVERSIONS    97 

on  smoked,  salted,  and  pickled  foods  and  during 
the  winter  were  entirely  without  the  fresh  meats 
and  green  vegetables  which  were  available  in  the 
summer  and  autumn  seasons.  * 

This  need  was  partly  satisfied  by  the  plentiful 
supply  of  venison  obtained  from  the  forests,  for 
the  colonists  were  great  hunters.  Fowling  pieces, 
powderflasks,  shot  bags,  worms,  and  ramrods  were 
a  part  of  every  country  householder's  equipment. 
Though  deer  and  wild  birds  were  less  plentiful 
in  the  eighteenth  than  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
their  number  was  still  large;  and  wild  turkeys, 
geese,  pigeons,  hares,  and  squirrels  were  always  to 
be  found.  Fish  abounded  in  the  rivers;  lobsters 
were  obtainable  off  the  shores  in  considerable  num- 
bers; clams  were  always  plentiful ;  and  oysters  were 
eaten  not  only  along  the  seacoast  from  Maine  to 
Georgia  but  even  in  the  back  country  as  far  as  the 
Shenandoah,  whither  they  were  sent  packed  in  old 

1  Just  when  and  where  ice  first  began  to  be  housed  for  summer  use 
it  is  difficult  to  discover  but  the  following  extract  from  a  manuscript 
journal  of  Epaphrus  Hoyt,  who  journeyed  from  Deerfield  to  Phila- 
delphia and  back  in  1790,  is  suggestive.  Writing  on  the  6th  of  August, 
he  said:  "After  we  got  through  Hell  Gate  we  drunk  a  bowl  of  Punch 
made  with  Ice  which  Mr.  Yates  a  passenger  had  took  on  board  at 
N.  York.  This  was  very  curious  to  see  Ice  at  this  season  of  the  year  — 
which  is  kept  (as  Mr.  Yates  informed  us)  through  the  summer  in 
houses  built  on  purpose." 


98  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

barrels  and  flour  casks  "lest  the  waggoners  get 
foul  of  'em."  Turtles  caught  in  the  neighborhood 
or  sent  from  the  West  Indies  were  frequently 
served  up  on  the  tables  of  the  richer  families  in  all 
the  colonies.  Even  buffalo  steaks  were  eaten,  for 
John  Rowe  records  a  dinner  in  1768  at  which  veni- 
son, buffalo  steaks,  perch,  trout,  and  salmon  \vere 
placed  before  the  guests. 

Nearly  all  the  meats,  vegetables,  and  fruits  famil- 
iar to  housekeepers  of  today  were  known  to  the 
colonial  dames.  In  the  better  houses,  beef,  mutton, 
lamb,  pork,  ham,  bacon,  and  smoked  and  dried 
fish  were  eaten,  as  well  as  sausages,  cheese,  and. 
butter,  which  were  usually  homemade  in  New 
England,  though  in  the  Middle  Colonies  and  the 
South  cheese  was  frequently  imported  from  Rhode 
Island.  It  is  related  that  once  when  Beekman  of 
New  York  could  not  sell  some  Rhode  Island  cheese 
that  "was  loosing  in  weight  and  spoiling  with  mag- 
gots, "  he  proposed  to  have  it  hawked  about  the 
town  by  a  cartman.  As  for  vegetables,  the  New 
Englander  was  familiar  with  cabbages,  radishes, 
lettuce,  turnips,  green  corn  carrots,  parsnips, 
spinach,  onions,  beets,  parsley  savory,  mustard, 
peppergrass,  celery,  cauliflower,  squashes,  pump- 
kins, beans,  peas,  and  asparagus;  but  only  the 


EVERYDAY  NEEDS  AND  DIVERSIONS    99 

more  prosperous  householders  pretended  to  culti- 
vate even  a  majority  of  these  in  their  gardens. 
In  the  rural  districts,  only  cabbages,  beans,  pump- 
kins, and  other  vegetables  of  the  coarser  varie- 
ties were  grown.  Potatoes  were  not  introduced 
until  after  the  advent  of  the  Scotch-Irish  in  1720, 
and  they  did  not  for  some  time  become  a  common 
vegetable.  Dr.  McSparran  of  Rhode  Island  made 
a  record  in  his  diary  in  1743  that  potatoes  were 
being  dug,  and  Birket  speaks  of  them  as  being 
"plentifully  produced"  by  the  year  1750.  Toma- 
toes were  hardly  yet  deemed  edible,  and  only 
an  occasional  mention  of  cucumbers  can  be 
found.  In  the  South  sweet  potatoes  early  became 
popular,  and  watermelons  and  muskmelons  were 
raised  in  large  quantities,  though  they  were  grown 
in  the  North  also  to  some  extent.  Every  South- 
ern plantation,  notably  in  Virginia,  had  its  vege- 
table and  flower  garden,  and  familiar  items  in  the 
lists  of  articles  ordered  from  England  are  the  seeds 
and  roots  which  the  planter  wanted. 

Fruit  was  abundant  everywhere.  Apples,  pears, 
peaches,  apricots,  damsons,  plums,  quinces,  cher- 
ries, and  crab  apples  were  all  raised  in  the  or- 
chards, North  and  South,  while  oranges,  prob- 
ably small  and  very  sour,  were  grown  in  South 


100  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

Carolina  and  on  Governor  Grant's  plantation  in 
East  Florida.  English  and  Italian  gardeners  were 
employed  by  certain  of  the  wealthier  planters 
and  often  exhibited  superior  skill  in  matters  of 
grafting  and  propagating  plants  and  shrubs. x  At 
first  grafts  were  obtained  from  England  and  the 
Continent,  but  as  early  as  1735  Paul  Amatis 
started  his  "Georgian  Nursery"  in  South  Caro- 
lina, and  later  William  Prince  established  in  the 
North  a  large  fruit  nursery  at  Flushing,  Long 
Island,  where  he  said  that  he  had  fifteen  thousand 
trees  fit  to  remove,  "all  innoculated  and  grafted 
from  bearing  trees."  Christian  Leman  began  a 
similar  nursery  at  Germantown,  Pennsylvania.  Of 
the  smaller  fruits,  strawberries,  blackberries,  and 
gooseberries  were  cultivated  and  highly  prized; 
wild  strawberries  and  huckleberries  were  as  well 
known  as  they  are  now;  and  grapes  were  found 
in  enormous  quantities  in  a  wild  state,  though  ef- 
forts to  grow  vineyards  for  the  purpose  of  making 
wine  were  never  very  successful. 

In  preparing  vegetables  and  fruits  for  preserv- 
ing, both  for  the  winter's  supply  at  home  and  the 

1  Grafting  was  practiced  in  New  England  at  an  early  date.  The 
Reverend  Joseph  Green  of  Salem  says  in  his  diary,  that  on  April  17, 
1701,  he  grafted  59  "  cyons  "  on  24  trees.  Essex  Institute  Histori- 
cal Collections,  vol.  vm,  p.  220- 


EVERYDAY  NEEDS  AND  DIVERSIONS    101 

Southern  and  West  India  markets,  the  New  Eng- 
land housewives  proved  themselves  eminently  re- 
sourceful and  skillful,  They  pickled  Indian  corn 
and  other  vegetables,  nuts,  and  oysters;  they  dried 
apples  or  else  made  them  into  sauce  and  butter; 
and  they  preserved  fruits  not  in  cans  or  sealed  jars 
but  in  huge  crocks  covered  with  paper  and  so 
sealed  that  the  fruit  would  keep  for  a  long  time 
without  fermenting. 

For  spices  and  condiments,  however,  all  the  col- 
onists had  to  depend  on  outside  sources.  Capers, 
English  walnuts,  anchovies,  nutmegs,  pepper, 
mace,  cloves,  cinnamon,  ginger,  olives,  salad  oil, 
almonds,  raisins,  and  dried  currants  were  com- 
monly ordered  from  England;  lemons,  which  in 
1763  were  declared  to  have  become  "almost  a  ne- 
cessity for  the  health  and  comfort  of  the  inhabit- 
ants of  North  America,"  were  obtained  from  the 
Mediterranean  and  the  West  Indies;  coffee,  tea 
(hyson,  bohea,  congo,  and  green),  and  "cocoa 
nuts  "  *  came  from  England  usually,  though  much 
of  the  spice,  tea,  and  cocoa  was  smuggled  in  from 
Amsterdam  or  the  foreign  West  Indies.  From  the 
latter  came  also  sweetmeats,  tamarinds,  preserved 

1  The  eighteenth-century  name  for  the  cocoa  bean  from  which 
chocolate  is  made. 


102  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

ginger,  citrons,  and  limes,  which  were  often  brought 
by  the  sea  captains  as  presents  from  West  India 
merchants,  to  whom  hams,  turkeys,  geese,  and  the 
like  were  sent  in  return.  Spices  and  coffee  were 
ground  at  home,  and  "cocoa  nuts"  were  made  into 
chocolate,  either  at  home  or  at  a  neighboring  mill. 
Beverley  ordered  a  stone  and  roller  for  preparing 
chocolate  on  his  plantation,  and  in  New  England 
there  were  several  chocolate  mills,  where  the  beans 
were  crushed  either  for  the  housewife  at  her  request 
or  for  sale. 

In  the  country  households  of  the  North  nearly 
everything  for  the  table  was  obtained  from  the 
farm,  and  only  salt,  sugar,  and  spices  were  bought. 
Even  sugar  was  a  luxury;  maple  sugar,  honey, 
and  brown  muscovado  sugar  were  sometimes  used, 
but  the  common  sweetening  was  molasses,  though 
this  was  rejected  in  the  South  for  table  use.  The 
food,  though  ample  in  quantity,  was  lacking  in 
variety  and  was  heavier  and  less  appetizing  than 
in  the  cities.  The  commonest  dishes  were  pork, 
smoked  salmon,  red  herring,  cod,  mackerel,  In- 
dian meal  in  many  forms,  vegetables  (including 
the  familiar  "  succotash "),  pies,  and  puddings. 
But  in  the  Northern  cities  the  variety  was  greater 
and  equaled  that  of  the  South.  Philadelphia  had 


EVERYDAY  NEEDS  AND  DIVERSIONS    103 

scores  of  families  whose  elaborate  tables  seemed  a 
sinful  waste  to  John  Adams,  who  has  recorded  in 
his  diary  the  luxury  of  the  Quaker  households.  In 
Massachusetts  the  extravagance  of  hospitality  was 
none  the  less  marked.  Henry  Vassall's  expense 
book  mentions  oysters,  herrings,  mackerel,  salmon, 
sausages,  cheese,  almonds,  biscuit,  ducks,  chickens, 
turkeys,  fowls,  quails,  teals,  pigeons,  beef,  calf's 
head,  rabbit,  lamb,  veal,  venison,  and  quantities  of 
vegetables  and  fruit,  as  well  as  honey,  chocolate, 
and  lemons. 

In  Virginia  breakfast,  at  least,  was  a  less  elabo- 
rate meal  than  in  New  England.  Harrower  tells 
us  that  at  Belvidera  it  consisted  of  tea,  coffee, 
or  chocolate,  warm  bread,  butter,  and  cold  meat. 
Eddis  mentions  a  Maryland  breakfast  "of  tea,  cof- 
fee, and  the  usual  accompaniments,  ham,  dried 
venison,  beef ,  and  other  relishing  articles."  Din- 
ner, which  was  always  served  at  noon,  consisted 
at  Belvidera  of  "smoack'd  bacon  or  what  we  call 
pork  ham  .  .  .  either  warm  or  cold;  when  warm  we 
have  also  either  warm  roast  pigg,  lamb,  ducks,  or 
chicken,  green  pease  or  anything  else  they  fancy.' 
As  these  colonists  also  had  "plenty  of  roast  and 
boy  led  and  good  strong  beer, "  it  is  perhaps  not  to 
be  wondered  at  that  they  "but  seldom  eat  any 


104  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

supper."  Fithian  speaks  of  a  "winter  plan"  at 
Nomini  Hall,  with  coffee  "  just  at  evening"  and 
supper  between  eight  and  nine  o'clock.  Quincy 
gives  an  account  of  his  entertainment  at  Charles- 
ton which  is  full  of  interest.  "  Table  decent  but  not 
inelegant;  provisions  indifferent,  but  well  dressed; 
good  wines  and  festivity."  And  again  on  other  oc- 
casions, "a  prodigious  fine  pudding  made  of  what 
they  call  rice  flour.  Nicknacks  brought  on  table 
after  removal  of  meats, "  "  a  most  genteel  supper, " 
"a  solid  plentiful  good  table."  What  most  im- 
pressed him  were  the  superior  quality  of  the  wines, 
the  frequent  exchange  of  toasts,  and  the  presence  of 
musicians.  Adam  Gordon  said  of  Charleston  that 
the  poultry  and  pork  were  excellent,  the  beef  and 
mutton  middling,  and  the  fish  very  rare  and  ex- 
pensive. "All  the  poor, "  he  added,  "and  many  of 
the  rich  eat  rice  for  bread  and  give  it  even  a  pref- 
erence; they  use  it  in  their  cakes,  called  Journey 
Cakes,  and  boiled,  or  else  boiled  Indian  corn,  which 
they  call  Hominy. " 

It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  the  colonists  were 
heavy  drinkers  and  that  they  consumed  liquors 
of  every  variety  in  enormous  quantities  on  all 
important  occasions  —  baptisms,  weddings,  funer- 
als, barn  raisings,  church  raisings,  house  raisings. 


EVERYDAY  NEEDS  AND  DIVERSIONS  105 

ship  launchings,  ordinations,  perambulations  or 
"beating  the  bounds,"  at  meetings  of  commis- 
sions and  committees,  and  in  taverns,  clubs,  and 
private  houses.  In  New  England  a  new  officer  was 
expected  on  training  day  "to  wet  his  commission 
bountifully."  Among  the  New  England  farmers 
beer,  cider,  cider  brandy,  and  rum  were  the  ordi- 
nary beverages.  Cider,  however,  gradually  sup- 
planted beer,  and  the  thrifty  farmer  sometimes 
laid  in  for  the  winter  a  supply  of  from  ten  to  thirty 
barrels.  A  keg  or  puncheon  of  rum  would  usually 
lie  alongside  the  barrels  of  cider  in  the  cellar. 
There  it  would  be  left  to  ripen  with  age,  with  the 
assistance  of  about  five  dozen  apples,  peeled  and 
cut  in  pieces,  which  were  added  to  improve  the 
flavor.  Beer  was  brewed  at  home  by  the  wives  or 
in  breweries  in  some  of  the  towns ;  even  Charleston 
experimented  in  brewing  with  malt  from  Philadel- 
phia. Ale  and  small  beer  in  bottles  were  imported 
from  England;  and  spruce  beer  was  used  as  a  drink 
and  sometimes  at  sea  as  a  remedy  against  scurvy. 
Rum  was  distilled  in  all  the  leading  New  Eng- 
land towns,  notably  at  Boston  and  Newport.  Not 
only  was  it  drunk  at  home  and  served  out  as  a 
regular  allowance  to  artisans  and  workmen,  but  it 
was  also  used  in  trade  with  the  Indians,  in  dealings 


106  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

with  the  fishermen  off  Nova  Scotia  and  Newfound- 
land, in  exchange  with  the  Southern  Colonies 
for  grain  and  naval  stores,  and  in  the  purchase  of 
slaves  in  Africa. J  Rum  from  the  West  Indies  was 
always  more  highly  prized  than  that  of  New  Eng- 
land and  brought  a  higher  price  in  the  market. 

Though  in  all  the  colonies  rum  was  a  common 
drink  and  arrack  was  consumed  also  to  some  extent 
on  Southern  tables,  the  colonists  in  the  North  were 
more  addicted  to  both  these  drinks  than  were  the 
Southerners,  and  the  colonists  in  New  England 
more  than  those  in  New  York  and  Pennsylvania, 
where  beer  drinking  predominated  among  the 
Dutch  and  the  Germans.  On  Southern  planta- 
tions the  large  number  of  distilleries  which  existed 
and  the  presence  of  stillhouses,  copper  stills,  and 
sweat  worms  indicate  a  wider  activity  than  merely 
the  distilling  of  rum  from  molasses.  Quantities  of 
apple  and  peach  brandy,  cherry  fling,  and  cherry 
rum  were  made  in  Virginia  and  South  Carolina, 
and  we  know  that  on  one  occasion  Van  Cortlandt 

1  In  1763  the  merchants  of  Boston  estimated  that  Massachusetts 
produced  yearly  15,000  hogsheads  or  1,500,000  gallons  of  rum,  dis- 
tributed as  follows:  9000  hogsheads  for  home  consumption  and  the 
whale,  cod,  and  mackerel  fisheries;  3000  for  the  Southern  Colonies; 
1700  for  Africa;  and  1300  for  Nova  Scotia  and  Newfoundland.  These 
figures  upset  some  time-honored  calculations  as  to  the  amount  of  rum 
used  in  the  slave  trade. 


EVERYDAY  NEEDS  AND  DIVERSIONS    107 

of  New  York  squared  a  single  Virginia  account  by 
accepting  six  hundred  gallons  of  peach  brandy  in- 
stead of  cash.  To  a  certain  extent  fruit  brandies 
were  made  in  the  North  also,  but  the  famous  apple- 
jack of  New  Jersey  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
introduced  until  just  before  the  Revolution.  It  has 
been  truly  said  that  fruit  growing  in  America  "had 
its  beginning  and  for  almost  two  hundred  years  its 
whole  sustenance  in  the  demand  for  strong  drink." 
Of  imported  wines  those  most  frequently  in  de- 
mand were  madeira,  claret,  Canary  vidonia,  bur- 
gundy and  other  French  wines,  port,  and  brandy. 
A  sort  of  homemade  claret  was  prepared  from 
wild  grapes  by  the  Huguenots  at  Manakintown, 
but  it  always  remained  an  experiment.  Claret 
was  a  table  drink  in  New  England,  but  Gerard 
Beekman  wrote  in  1753  that  it  was  in  no  de- 
mand in  New  York  and  that  French  wines  were 
not  in  favor.  Though  it  was  imported  in  consider- 
able quantities,  brandy  never  became  a  popular 
colonial  drink,  and  in  Charleston,  when  the  price 
was  high,  it  was  used  chiefly  for  medicinal  pur- 
poses. In  the  same  city,  Canary  vidonia  was 
considered  much  inferior  to  madeira  and  was  not 
usually  liked  because  it  was  too  sweet.  Birket, 
however,  said  that  it  was  a  common  drink  among 


108  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

people  of  fortune  in  New  England,  though  it  was 
harsh  in  taste  and  inclined  to  look  thick.  As  a  rule 
the  colonists  did  not  like  sweet  wines,  and  for  this 
reason  the  aromatic  malmsey  never  pleased  the 
colonial  palate.  Quincy,  who  found  the  Charleston 
wines  "by  odds  the  richest"  he  had  ever  tasted, 
thought  them  superior  to  those  served  by  John 
Hancock  of  Boston  and  Henry  Vassall  of  Cam- 
bridge. His  account  of  the  customary  protracted 
toasting  and  drinking  at  Charleston  tables  reminds 
one  of  the  story  Hamilton  is  said  to  have  related  of 
Washington.  "  Gen'l  H.  told  us, "  says  London  in 
his  diary,  "that  Gen'l  Washington  notwithstand- 
ing his  perfect  regularity  and  love  of  decorum 
could  bear  to  drink  more  wine  than  most  people. 
He  loved  to  make  a  procrastinated  dinner  —  made 
it  a  rule  to  drink  a  glass  of  wine  with  every  one  at 
table  and  yet  always  drank  3-4  or  more  glasses 
of  wine  after  dinner,  according  to  his  company  — 
and  every  night  took  a  pint  of  cream  and  toasted 
crust  for  supper." 

An  excellent  idea  of  the  customary  drinks  of 
these  colonial  times  can  be  gained  from  a  list  issued 
in  1744  by  the  county  court  of  Chowan,  North 
Carolina,  mentioning  madeira,  Canary  vidonia, 
Carolina  cider,  Northern  cider,  strong  malt  beer  of 


EVERYDAY  NEEDS  AND  DIVERSIONS   109 

American  make,  flip  with  half  a  pint  of  rum  in  it, 
porter  from  Great  Britain,  punch  with  loaf  sugar, 
lime  juice,  and  half  a  pint  of  rum,  British  ale  or 
beer  bottled  and  wired  in  Great  Britain.  Flip  was 
made  in  different  ways,  but  a  common  variety  was 
a  mixture  of  rum,  pumpkin  beer,  and  brown  sugar, 
into  which  a  red-hot  poker  had  been  plunged.  For 
lighter  drinks  there  were  lemonade,  citron  water, 
distillations  of  anise  seed,  oranges,  cloves,  treacle, 
ratafia,  peppermint,  and  angelica,  and  other  home- 
made cordials  and  liqueurs. 

Taverns,  usually  poor  in  appearance  and  service, 
were  to  be  found  everywhere  from  Maine  to  Geor- 
gia, in  the  towns,  on  the  traveled  roads,  and  at  the 
ferry  landings.  They  not  only  offered  accommoda- 
tions for  man  and  beast  but  frequently  served  also 
for  council  and  assembly  meetings,  social  gather- 
ings, merchants'  associations,  preaching,  the  acting 
of  plays ;  and  their  balconies  proved  convenient  for 
the  making  of  public  speeches  and  announcements. 
The  taverns,  which  also  provided  resorts  where  it 
was  possible  for  "gentlemen  to  enjoy  their  bowl 
and  bottle  with  satisfaction, "  were  the  scenes  of  a 
vast  amount  of  hard  drinking  and  quarreling.  It 
was,  for  instance,  in  a  corner  parlor  of  Hathe way's 
tavern  in  Charleston  in  1770,  that  De  Lancey  was 


110  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

mortally  wounded  by  Hadley  in  a  duel  fought  with 
pistols  in  the  dark.  Men  met  at  the  taverns  in 
clubs  to  play  billiards  and  cards,  to  drink,  and  to 
gamble,  and  the  following  record  shows  the  sort  of 
score  that  they  ran  up:  "Punch  and  game  of  bil- 
liards; one  pack  of  cards;  to  flip  at  whick  [whist]; 
to  punch  at  ombre;  ditto  at  all  fours;  to  liquor  at 
billiards  all  night;  to  sangaree  and  wine;  to  sack, 
punch,  and  beer;  club  to  brandy  punch;  to  two 
sangarees  at  billiards;  to  punch  at  cards,  club 
afterwards."  Many  of  the  taverns  had  skittle 
alleys  and  shuffleboards,  but  neither  these  games 
nor  billiards  and  bowling  were  confined  to  public 
resorts.  Billiard  tables  were  to  be  found  in  private 
houses,  and  bowling  was  often  played  in  alleys 
specially  built  for  the  purpose;  and  we  are  told 
that  Councilman  Carter  had  a  bowling  green  near 
Nomini  Hall. 

Card  playing  was  a  common  diversion.  Packs 
of  cards  must  have  come  in  with  the  first  Virginia 
and  Maryland  settlers,  for  card  tables  are  known 
to  have  been  in  use  on  Kent  Island  as  early  as 
1658.  The  number  of  packs  of  cards  imported  was 
prodigious:  one  ship  from  London  brought  to  the 
Cape  Fear  Colony  toward  the  end  of  this  period 
144  packs,  another  576,  and  another  888;  a  Boston 


EVERYDAY  NEEDS  AND  DIVERSIONS    111 

invoice  shows  1584  packs;  a  single  Pennsylvania  im- 
portation was  valued  at  forty-four  pounds  sterling. 
We  know  that  cards  were  distributed  and  sold  in 
stores  from  Portsmouth  and  Albany  to  Charleston 
and  as  far  back  as  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  where 
Daniel  Morgan,  later  a  major  general  under  Wash- 
ington, spent  his  hilarious  youth,  drinking  rum, 
playing  cards,  and  running  up  gambling  debts. 
From  these  facts  we  can  appreciate  what  Peter 
du  Bois  meant  when  he  wrote  of  his  days  at 
Wilmington:  "I  live  very  much  retired  for  want 
of  a  social  set,  who  will  drink  claret  and  smoke 
tobacco  till  four  in  the  morning;  the  gentlemen 
of  this  town  might  be  so  if  they  pleased,  but  an 
intolerable  itch  for  gaming  prevails  in  all  com- 
panies. This  I  conceive  is  the  bane  of  society  and 
therefore  I  shun  the  devotees  to  cards  and  pass 
my  hours  chiefly  at  home  with  my  pipe  and  some 
agreeable  author."  Henry  Laurens,  a  merchant, 
mentions  the  case  of  a  young  man  in  his  counting- 
house,  who  had  given  his  note  to  a  card  sharper 
and  was  with  difficulty  rescued  from  "the  gap- 
ing pickpockets"  who  had  "followed  him  like  a 
shadow/'  Gaming  for  high  stakes  was  a  well- 
known  failing  of  the  Vassall  family,  and  because 
of  his  love  for  reckless  play  Henry  undoubtedly 


112  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

hastened  his  bankruptcy.  But  this  vice  was  not 
confined  to  the  quality,  for  negroes  and  street  boys, 
from  Salem  to  Charleston,  gambled  in  the  streets 
at  "pawpaw"  and  dice;  and  "huzzlecap"  or  match- 
ing pennies  was  so  common  as  to  call  forth  protests 
and  grand  jury  presentments  in  an  effort  to  abate 
what  was  justly  deemed  a  public  nuisance. 

The  use  of  tobacco  was  general  in  every  class  of 
society  and  in  every  locality.  Even  women  of  the 
lower  classes  smoked,  for  there  is  a  reference  to  one 
who  had  a  fit,  dropped  a  "coal"  from  her  pipe,  and 
was  burned  to  death.  For  smoking  and  chewing, 
tobacco  was  either  cut  and  dried  or  else  was  made 
up  into  "pigtails,"  as  the  small  twisted  ropes  or 
braids  were  called,  though  "paper  tobacco,"  put 
up  in  paper  packages,  was  coming  into  favor.  To- 
bacco was  smoked  only  in  pipes,  either  the  fine  long 
glazed  pipes  of  clay  imported  from  England  and 
commonly  called  "churchwardens,"  or  in  Indian 
pipes  of  red  pipestone,  often  beautifully  carved. 
Probably  the  Dutch  and  Germans  continued  to  use 
in  America  their  old-country  porcelain  pipes  with 
pendulous  stems,  and  it  is  more  than  likely  that 
wooden  and  cob  pipes  were  in  fashion  in  the  rural 
districts.  Cigars  were  not  known  in  America  until 
after  1800.  Though  in  early  advertisements  snuff 


EVERYDAY  NEEDS  AND  DIVERSIONS   113 

was  recommended  as  medicinal,  the  taking  of  snuff 
came  to  be  as  much  a  matter  of  social  custom  as  of 
pleasure :  to  the  rich  merchant  and  planter  the  snuff- 
box was  an  article  of  decoration  and  its  proper  use 
a  matter  of  etiquette.  Snuff  was  usually  imported 
in  canisters  and  bladders  and  occasionally  in  bot- 
tles; but  there  were  snuff  factories  in  Philadelphia 
and  New  York,  and  the  father  of  Gilbert  Stuart 
was  a  snuff  maker  in  Rhode  Island. 

In  addition  to  the  diversion  to  be  obtained  from 
drinking,  smoking,  and  gambling,  which  may  be 
called  the  representative  colonial  vices,  there  were 
plenty  of  amusements  and  sports  which  absorbed 
the  attention  of  the  colonists,  North  and  South. 
The  woods  and  waters  offered  endless  opportunity 
in  summer  for  fishing  and  in  winter  for  such  time- 
honored  pursuits  as  hunting,  fowling,  trapping,  and 
fishing  through  the  ice.  John  Rowe  of  Boston  was 
a  famous  and  untiring  fisherman ;  thousands  of  other 
enthusiasts  played  the  part  of  colonial  Isaak  Wai- 
tons;  and  there  was  a  fishing  club  on  the  Schuyl- 
kill  as  early  as  1732.  Fishing  rods,  lines,  sinkers, 
and  hooks  were  commonly  imported  from  England. 

The  woods  were  full  of  such  big  game  as  elk, 
moose,  black  bears,  deer,  lynxes,  pumas  or  pan- 
thers (sometimes  called  "tigers"),  gray  wolves. 


114  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

and  wildcats;  and  there  was  an  abundance  of  such 
smaller  animals  as  foxes,  beavers,  martens  or  fish- 
ers, otters,  weasels,  minks,  raccoons,  and  musk- 
rats  or  "musquashes,"  as  they  are  still  called  in 
rural  New  England.  These  animals  were  killed 
without  regard  for  the  future  of  the  species.  Some- 
times the  settlers  even  resorted  to  the  wasteful  and 
unsportsmanlike  method  of  burning  the  forests,  so 
that  the  larger  animals  began  to  disappear  from 
the  Eastern  regions.  Buffaloes,  for  instance,  were 
formerly  found  in  North  Carolina  as  far  east  as 
Craven  County,  but  in  the  upcountry  of  South 
Carolina  it  was  said  that  three  or  four  men  with 
dogs  could  kill  twenty  of  these  animals  in  a  day. 
In  this  same  State  the  last  elk  had  been  killed  as 
early  as  1781.  Nor  was  the  case  otherwise  with 
the  smaller  game  and  fowl.  Wooden  decoys  and 
camouflaged  boats  aided  in  the  destruction  of  the 
ducks;  caged  pigeons  were  used  to  attract  the 
wilder  members  of  the  species,  which  were  shot 
in  large  numbers,  particularly  in  New  England; 
and  so  unlicensed  had  the  destruction  of  the  heath 
hen  become  in  New  York  that  in  1708  the  prov- 
ince determined  to  protect  its  game  by  providing 
for  a  closed  season.  Thus  early  did  the  movement 
for  conservation  begin  in  America. 


EVERYDAY  NEEDS  AND  DIVERSIONS   115 

The  sport  of  hunting  led  to  the  improvement  of 
firearms  and  to  the  introduction  of  the  English 
custom  of  fox-hunting.  Guns,  which  had  formerly 
been  clumsy  and  unreliable,  were  now  perfected 
to  such  a  degree  that  we  find  references  to  a  gun 
which  would  repeat  six  times,  a  chambered  gun,  a 
double-barreled  gun,  and  a  "neat  birding  piece, 
mounted  with  brass. "  Rifles,  which  were  common, 
were  used  for  target  practice  as  well  as  for  hunting. 
Rifle  matches  were  arranged  in  Virginia  on  muster 
days,  and  in  Connecticut  shooting  at  a  mark  for  a 
money  prize  was  a  favorite  diversion  on  training 
days.  Both  the  Virginians  and  the  New  Yorkers 
were  skillful  fox-hunters  and  very  fond  of  riding 
to  hounds,  for  which  they  imported  their  foxes 
from  England. 

In  the  South  the  two  leading  sports  were  horse 
racing  and  cockfighting,  though  the  former  was 
an  absorbing  passion  in  all  the  colonies.  Cock- 
fighting  —  so  well  illustrated  in  Hogarth's  famous 
engraving,  which  may  well  have  been  on  many  a 
colonial  wall  after  1760  —  was  a  sport  which  had 
been  brought  to  America  from  England  and  which 
had  lost  none  of  its  brutality  in  the  transfer.  From 
Annapolis  to  Charleston  the  local  rivalry  was  in- 
tense. We  read,  for  example,  that  a  main  of  cocks 


116  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

was  fought  between  the  gentlemen  of  Gloucester 
and  those  of  James  River,  in  which  twenty  pairs 
were  matched  and  fought  for  five  guineas  the 
battle  and  fifty  guineas  the  odd.  When  Gloucester 
won,  James  River  challenged  again  and  this  time 
came  out  ahead,  and  so  the  contest  went  on. 
Matches  were  frequently  advertised  in  the  Annap- 
olis, Williamsburg,  and  Charleston  papers,  stating 
in  each  case  so  many  cocks,  so  many  battles,  so 
much  each  and  so  much  the  odd,  in  guineas,  pounds, 
and  pistoles.  Champion  cocks,  like  horses,  were 
known  by  name  and  were  pitted  against  all  comers. 
Quincy  saw  five  battles  on  his  way  from  Wil- 
liamsburg to  Port  Royal,  and  mentions  having 
met  in  Maryland  two  persons  "  of  the  middling 
rank  in  life,"  who  had  spent  three  successive 
days  in  cockfighting  and  "as  many  nights  in  riot 
and  debauchery. " 

Horse  racing  was  even  more  engrossing  than 
cockfighting.  What  is  perhaps  the  earliest  record- 
ed race  took  place  in  York  County,  Virginia,  in 
1674,  when  a  tailor  and  a  physician  had  a  brush 
with  their  horses,  in  consequence  of  which  the 
tailor  was  fined  by  the  county  court,  because  "it 
was  contrary  to  law  for  a  labourer  to  make  a 
race,  being  a  sport  only  for  gentlemen."  Racing  in 


EVERYDAY  NEEDS  AND  DIVERSIONS    11? 

Virginia  was  thus  enjoyed  as  an  occasional  pastime 
at  a  very  early  date,  though  it  did  not  become 
a  regular  practice  until  after  1730,  when  the  first 
blooded  stallion  was  imported.  Apparently  the 
earliest  race  outside  of  Virginia  occurred  in  East 
New  Jersey  in  1694,  when  Sam  Jennings  was 
charged  with  being  drunk  when  riding  a  horse 
race  with  J.  Slocum.  It  may  be  noted  in  passing 
that  horse  racing,  gambling,  and  possessing  a 
billiard  table  were  forbidden  by  law  in  Connecti- 
cut and  that  all  such  pursuits  were  discouraged, 
though  not  forbidden,  in  Massachusetts  and  Rhode 
Island.1 

Races  were  run  on  greens  at  Newmarket  in 
New  Hampshire,  at  Hempstead,  Flatland  Plains, 
and  around  Beaver  Pond  on  Long  Island,  on  John 
Vanderbilt's  field  on  Staten  Island,  at  Paulus  Hook 
(now  Jersey  City),  at  Morristown  and  Perth  Am- 
boy  in  New  Jersey,  at  Center  Course  near  Phila- 
delphia, and  at  Lancaster  in  the  same  colony, 
at  the  race  course  near  Annapolis,  at  Alexandria, 
Fredericksburg,  and  many  other  places  in  Virginia. 
Races  were  also  run  on  dozens  of  "race  paths"  in 

1  Horses  were  raced  in  Connecticut,  but  privately  rather  than 
oublicly.  Hempstead  in  his  Diary  (pp.  148,  156,  579,  601)  mentions 
three  races  and  one  race  horse. 


118  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

North  and  South  Carolina,  where  large  plantations 
had  their  own  courses,  as  well  as  on  such  public 
tracks  as  the  Round  Course  at  Monck's  Corner, 
York  Course  at  the  Old  Quarter  House,  and  Thomas 
Butler's  Race  Ground  on  Charleston  Neck. 

The  number  of  blooded  stallions  and  mares  in 
the  colonies  before  the  Revolution  must  have  been 
very  large.  Massachusetts  was  the  home  of  many 
blooded  horses,  Rhode  Island  was  famous  for  its 
Narragansett  pacers,  and  even  Connecticut  had 
stallions  obtained  from  England  for  breeding  pur- 
poses. Virginia  alone,  beginning  her  importa- 
tion with  Bully  Rock  in  1730,  has  record  of 
fifty  stallions  and  thirty  mares  bred  from  stock 
introduced  from  England,  and  the  services  of 
breeding  horses  were  frequently  advertised.  The 
horses  used  for  racing  were,  of  course,  runners 
and  pacers,  as  the  trotting  horse  had  not  yet 
been  introduced,  and  the  time  which  they  made 
is  recorded  as  low  as  two  minutes.  The  fast 
colts  of  Governor  Sharpe  of  Maryland  were  well 
known,  and  Governor  Ogle  had  a  famous  imported 
horse  named  Spark.  The  Narragansett  pacers, 
as  they  were  called,  were  the  most  distinctive 
colonial  breed,  and  horsemen  from  the  Southern 
Colonies  visited  Rhode  Island,  purchased  stock, 


EVERYDAY  NEEDS  AND  DIVERSIONS    119 

and  advertised  the  merits  of  their  animals  in  the 
newspapers.  Some  of  the  colonial  horse  breeders 
preferred  to  buy  their  stock  in  England,  and  it  is 
interesting  to  note,  as  an  indication  of  the  value 
of  horses  in  those  days,  that  Charles  Carroll  con- 
templated buying  a  stallion  for  one  hundred  pounds 
sterling  and  brood  mares  for  fifty  pounds  each. 
It  is  perhaps  equally  interesting  to  know  that  he 
was  dissuaded  from  his  purchase  by  an  inveterate 
colonial  distrust  of  the  ways  of  the  mother  country. 
Horse  races  were  of  all  kinds  —  for  scrubs  and 
thoroughbreds,  three-  or  four-year-olds,  colts,  and 
fillies ;  the  heats  were  generally  the  best  two  out  of 
three;  and  the  distance  was  from  one  to  five  miles, 
with  entrance  fees  and  double  at  the  post,  and 
prizes  in  the  form  of  purses,  silver  punch  bowls, 
pint  pots  and  tankards,  saddles,  bridles,  boots, 
jockey  caps,  and  the  like.  There  were  such  prizes, 
too,  as  the  Jockey  Club  Plate,  the  Town  Purse, 
and  the  Free  Mason's  Plate.  There  was  a  Jockey 
Club  in  Virginia  before  the  Revolution,  but  that 
in  Maryland  was  not  organized  until  1783.  The 
crowds  were  large,  the  side  betting  was  heavy,  and 
pickpockets  were  always  on  hand.  The  jockeys, 
black  or  white,  who  rode  the  horses  were  sometimes 
thrown  and  seriously  injured  or  killed.  On  at 


120  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

least  one  course  a  "ladies'  gallery, "  or  grand  stand, 
was  erected,  and  there  were  doubtless  others  else- 
where. So  great  was  the  popularity  of  these 
races  that  the  Quaker  Peckover  had  to  wait  until 
a  Virginia  race  was  over  before  he  could  hold 
a  meeting. 

It  was  at  the  colonial  fairs  that  horse  racing 
was  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  incidents.  These 
fairs  were  held  in  all  the  colonies  outside  of  New 
England,  and  even  there  they  were  occasionally 
held,  except  in  Connecticut,  where,  as  the  unvera- 
cious  Samuel  Peters  says,  dancing,  fishing,  hunt- 
ing, skating,  and  sleighing  on  the  ice  were  the  only 
amusements  allowed.  Though  the  fairs  were  in 
most  cases  ordained  by  law,  they  were  sometimes 
purely  private  undertakings,  as  that  held  at  Rye, 
New  Hampshire,  which  was  promoted  by  an  inn- 
keeper, or  that  at  Williamsburg,  in  1739,  which 
found  its  support  in  a  fund  raised  by  a  group 
of  gentlemen. 

The  object  of  the  fair  was  to  bring  people  to- 
gether, to  encourage  trade,  and  "to  provide  a 
general  commerce  or  traffic  among  persons  that 
want  to  buy  or  sell  either  the  product  or  manu- 
facture of  the  country  or  any  other  sorts  of  goods 
or  merchandize."  In  some  colonies  the  fairs, 


EVERYDAY  NEEDS  AND  DIVERSIONS    141 

which  usually  lasted  for  three  days,  were  held  but 
once  a  year  in  the  autumn  but  in  others  twice  a 
year,  in  May  and  in  September  or  October.  On 
these  occasions  horses,  oxen,  cows,  sheep,  hogs, 
and  sundry  sorts  of  goods  were  exposed  for  sale. 
The  people  indulged  in  such  varieties  of  sport  as  a 
slow  horse  race  with  a  silver  watch  to  the  hindmost,, 
a  foot  race  at  Williamsburg  from  the  college  to  the 
capitol,  a  race  for  women,  on  Long  Island,  with  a 
Holland  smock  and  a  chintz  gown  for  prizes,  a  race 
by  men  in  bags,  and  an  obstacle  race  for  boys. 
There  were  cudgeling  bouts,  bear  baiting,  goug- 
ing, a  notoriously  cruel  sport,  and  catching  a  goose 
at  full  speed  or  a  pig  with  a  greased  tail.  There 
weie  also  such  other  amusing  entertainments  as 
grinning  contests  by  half  a  dozen  men  or  women 
for  a  roll  of  tobacco  or  a  plum  pudding,  and  whis- 
tling contests  for  a  guinea,  in  which  the  participants 
>vere  to  whistle  selected  tunes  as  clearly  as  possi- 
ble without  laughing.  The  people  enjoyed  puppet 
shows,  ropewalking,  and  fortune  telling;  and  the 
ubiquitous  medicine  hawker  sold  his  wares  from  a 
stage  "and  by  his  harangues,  the  odd  tricks  of  his 
Merry  Andrew,  and  the  surprising  feats  of  his  little 
boy"  always  attracted  a  crowd.  The  fairs  were 
also  utilized  in  Virginia  as  an  occasion  for  paying 


COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

debts,  trading  horses,  buying  land,  and  obtaining 
bills  of  exchange. 

Prominent  among  more  aristocratic  colonial 
diversions  were  the  balls  and  assemblies  given  in 
private  and  public  houses,  where  dancing  was  the 
order  of  the  evening.  Dancing,  though  not  strictly 
forbidden  in  New  England,  was  not  encouraged, 
particularly  if  it  were  promiscuous  or  mixed.  Yet 
so  frequent  were  the  occasions  for  dancing  that 
many  dancing  schools  were  conducted  in  the  larger 
towns.  One  of  the  most  noted  was  that  of  Charles 
Pelham  in  Boston,  where  in  1754  lessons  were  given 
three  afternoons  a  week.  State  balls,  governor's  as  > 
semblies,  and  private  gatherings  were  marked  by 
lavish  display,  formal  etiquette,  and  prolonged  danc- 
ing, drinking,  and  card  playing.  The  quality,  who 
arrived  in  coaches,  wore  their  most  resplendent  cos- 
tumes, went  through  the  steps  of  the  stately  minuet, 
and  also  joined  in  the  jigs,  reels,  marches,  country 
dances,  and  hornpipes  which  were  all  in  vogue  at 
that  time. 

Music,  which  was  a  popular  colonial  accomplish- 
ment, was  taught  as  an  important  subject  in  a 
number  of  schools,  and  many  a  daughter  was  kept 
at  her  scales  until  she  cried  from  sheer  exhaustion. 
In  the  South  the  colonists  were  familiar  with  such 


EVERYDAY  NEEDS  AND  DIVERSIONS    123 

musical  instruments  as  the  spinnet,  harpsichord, 
pianoforte,  viol,  violin,  violoncello,  guitar,  Ger- 
man flute,  French  horn,  and  Jew's-harp.  Thomas 
Jefferson  was  "vastly  pleased"  with  Jenny  Talia- 
ferro's  playing  on  the  spinnet  and  singing.  Ben- 
jamin Carter,  son  of  Councilman  Carter  of  Nomini 
Hall,  had  a  guitar,  a  harpsichord,  a  pianoforte,  a 
harmonica,  a  violin,  a  German  flute,  and  an  organ. 
He  also  had  a  good  ear  for  music  and,  as  Fithian 
tells  us,  was  indefatigable  in  practice.  Captain 
Goelet  went  to  a  "consort"  in  Boston,  where  the 
performers,  playing  on  four  small  violins,  one  bass 
violin,  a  German  flute,  and  an  "indifrent  small 
organ,"  did  "as  well  as  could  be  expected."  Jo- 
siah  Quincy  attended  a  meeting  of  the  St.  Cecilia 
Society  in  Charleston  in  a  "large  inelegant  build- 
ing," where  the  performers  were  all  at  one  end  of 
the  hall,  and  the  music,  he  thought,  "was  good," 
the  playing  on  the  bass  viols  and  French  horns  be- 
ing "grand,"  but  that  on  the  harpsichord  "badly 
done,"  though  the  performance  of  a  recently  ar- 
rived French  violinist  was  "incomparable."  "The 
capital  defect  of  this  concert,"  he  said,  "was  want 
of  an  organ. " 

Interest  in  the  drama  in  these  early  days  was 
much  less  general  than  the  love  of  music,  owing  to 


124  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

the  rare  opportunities  which  the  people  had  foi 
seeing  plays.  While  there  may  have  been  private 
performances  given  by  amateurs  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  the  earliest  of  which  we  have  any  record 
were  those  given  before  Governor  Spotswood  in 
Williamsburg,  probably  in  the  theater  erected  in 
1716,  that  in  the  "playhouse"  in  New  York  before 
1733,  and  that  in  the  court  room  in  Charleston  in 
1735.  Taverns,  court  rooms,  and  warehouses  were 
used  for  much  of  the  early  acting,  and  the  first 
theaters  in  Williamsburg,  New  Y^ork,  Charleston, 
Philadelphia,  and  Annapolis,  were  crude  affairs, 
rough  unadorned  buildings  very  much  like  ware- 
houses or  tobacco  barns  in  appearance.  There 
were  no  professional  companies  until  1750,  when 
Murray,  Kean,  Lewis  Hallam,  and  David  Douglas 
began  the  history  of  the  theater  in  America  and 
aroused  a  great  deal  of  interest  in  plays  and  play- 
going  from  New  York  to  Savannah.  Nearly  all 
the  plays,  both  tragedies  and  comedies,  of  these  days 
were  of  English  origin.  Some  of  these  early  dramas 
were  The  Recruiting  Officer,  The  Orphan,  The 
Spanish  Friar  or  the  Double  Discovery,  The  Jealous 
Wife,  Theodosius  or  the  Mourning  Bride,  The  Dis- 
tressed Mother,  Love  in  a  Village,  The  Provoked 
Husband,  The  School  for  Lovers,  and  a  few  of 


EVERYDAY  NEEDS  AND  DIVERSIONS    125 

Shakespeare's  plays,  such  as  The  Tempest,  King 
Lear,  Hamlet,  and  Romeo  and  Juliet.  Though 
earlier  plays  had  been  written  in  America  but  not 
acted,  there  was  performed  at  Philadelphia  in  1767 
the  first  American  tragedy,  The  Prince  of  Parthia, 
by  Thomas  Godfrey,  son  of  the  William  Godfrey, 
with  whom  Franklin  boarded  for  a  time,  and  who 
shares  with  Hadley  the  honor  of  inventing  the 
quadrant.  Though  there  was  no  theater  in  New 
England  until  later,  in  1732,  the  New  England 
Weekly  Journal  of  Boston,  in  defiance  of  Puritan 
prejudice,  printed  in  its  columns  a  play,  The  Lon- 
don Merchant.  Though  the  Quaker  opposition  was 
not  overcome  until  1754  in  Philadelphia,  when  Hal- 
lam  went  there  with  his  company,  the  first  perma- 
nent theater  in  America,  the  Southwark,  was  built 
In  that  city  in  1766,  and  it  was  there  a  year  later 
that  Godfrey's  tragedy  was  performed. 

During  the  twenty  years  preceding  the  Revolu- 
tion, theatergoing  was  a  constant  diversion  among 
the  better  class  in  the  Middle  and  Southern  Colo- 
nies, and  Mrs.  Manigault  of  Charleston  tells  us  in 
her  diary  that  she  went  five  times  in  one  week. 
Colonel  Jones  wrote  from  Williamsburg  in  1736: 
"You  may  tell  Betty  Pratt  [his  stepdaughter]  there 
has  been  but  two  plays  acted  since  she  went,  which 


126  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

is  Cato  by  the  young  gentlemen  of  the  college,  as 
they  call  themselves,  and  the  Busybody  by  the  com- 
pany on  Wednesday  night  last  and  I  believe  there 
will  be  another  to-night.  They  have  been  at  a 
great  loss  for  a  fine  lady,  who  I  think  is  called 
Dorinda,  but  that  difficulty  is  overcome  by  finding 
her,  which  was  to  be  the  greatest  secret  and  as  such 
'tis  said  to  be  Miss  Anderson  that  came  to  town 
with  Mrs.  Carter. "  William  Allason,  writing  from 
Falmouth,  Virginia,  in  1771,  said:  "The  best  sett 
of  players  that  ever  performed  in  America  are  to 
open  the  theater  in  Fredericksburg  on  Tuesday 
next  and  continue  for  some  weeks. "  Quincy  saw 
Hallam  in  The  Padlock  and  The  Gamester  in  New 
York  in  1773  and  thought  him  indifferent  in 
tragedy  but  better  in  comedy,  while  some  of  his 
company  "acted  superlatively." 

Occasional  amusements  of  a  less  formal  or  per- 
manent nature  existed  in  great  variety.  Itiner- 
ant performers  passed  up  and  down  the  colonies. 
Dugee,  an  artist  on  the  slack  wire,  began  his  exhi- 
bitions in  1732  at  Van  Dernberg's  Garden  in  New 
York.  Mrs.  Eleanor  Harvey  made  quite  a  sensa- 
tion as  a  fortune  teller  shortly  before  the  Revolu- 
tion. Exhibitions  of  dwarfs,  electrical  devices  and 
displays,  musical  clocks,  and  Punch  and  Judy  shows 


EVERYDAY  NEEDS  AND  DIVERSIONS 

were  common  in  most  of  the  cities  and  larger  towns. 
Waxworks  were  also  very  popular;  and  of  these 
the  most  famous  were  those  of  Mrs.  Wright,  with 
the  figures  of  Whitefield  and  John  Dickinson,  and 
groups  illustrating  the  Return  of  the  Prodigal  Son. 
The  beginnings  of  a  menagerie  and  circus  may 
be  seen  in  the  exhibition  of  a  lion  in  the  Jerseys, 
New  York,  and  Connecticut  in  1729,  the  horses 
that  did  tricks  and  the  dogs  that  rode  sitting  up 
in  the  saddle,  and  the  "shows"  that  occasionally 
came  to  New  England  towns.  On  important  oc- 
casions fireworks,  rockets,  wheels,  and  candles  were 
set  off.  Michel  gives  an  entertaining  account  of  a 
display  at  Williamsburg  in  1702,  at  which  a  num- 
ber of  mishaps  occurred.  The  show  began  with  a 
"reversed  rocket,  which  was  to  pass  along  a  string 
to  an  arbor  where  prominent  ladies  were  seated, 
but  it  got  stuck  half-way  and  exploded.  Two  stars 
[wheels]  were  to  revolve  through  the  fireworks,  but 
they  succeeded  no  better  than  with  the  rockets.  In 
short,  nothing  was  successful,  the  rockets  also  re- 
fused to  fly  up,  but  fell  down  archlike,  so  that  it 
was  not  worth  while  seeing.  Most  of  the  people, 
however,  had  never  seen  such  things  and  praised 
them  highly." 

The  calendar  days  of  St.  Andrew,  St.  Patrick, 


128  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

St.  David,  and  St.  George  were  celebrated  in  the 
South  with  drinking  and  speechmaking,  and  St. 
Tammany  Day  was  observed  in  Philadelphia  with 
music  and  feasting.  Christmas  week  was  a  period 
of  merrymaking  not  only  in  the  South  but  also 
among  the  Anglicans  in  the  North,  where  a  Christ- 
mas service  was  always  held  in  King's  Chapel  in 
Boston.  In  both  sections  of  the  country  the  occa- 
sion was  marked  by  presents  to  members  of  the 
family  and  to  friends  and  by  "boxes"  (a  term 
familiar  to  the  Southerners  and  still  in  use  in  Eng- 
land) to  the  servants  and  tradesmen.  It  was  cus- 
tomary to  observe  Gunpowder  Day,  the  5th  of  No- 
vember, in  Northern  cities,  where  it  was  called  Pope 
Day  and  was  celebrated  by  boys  and  young  men, 
who  carried  about  in  procession  effigies  of  the  Pope, 
the  devil,  and  any  one  else  who  was  for  the  moment 
in  popular  disfavor.  The  day,  however,  was  ac- 
companied by  so  much  rowdiness  and  disturbance 
of  the  peace  in  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire,  that 
its  continuance  was  forbidden  in  1768  by  ordei 
of  the  Assembly.  Thanksgiving  Day,  that  time- 
honored  New  England  institution  which  originated 
with  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  in  1621,  had  become  in  the 
eighteenth  century  an  annual  November  observ- 
ance, proclaimed  by  the  Governor.  During  this 


EVERYDAY  NEEDS  AND  DIVERSIONS    129 

holiday  no  labor  could  be  performed;  the  people 
gathered  at  church  and  feasted  at  their  homes,  sur- 
rounded by  their  kin  from  far  and  near,  engaging 
occasionally  in  harmless  enjoyment,  but  without 
hilarity  or  unseemly  indulgence. 

In  the  North  especially,  quoits,  football,  ball  and 
bat  (not  baseball,  which  was  a  nineteenth-century 
introduction),  stoolball  (the  forerunner  of  cricket, 
with  the  wicket  originally  a  stool),  cricket,  and 
wicket  were  common  sports.  Bowling,  billiards, 
and  shuffleboard  have  already  been  mentioned. 
For  younger  people  there  were  plenty  of  marbles 
and  alleys,  tag,  tops,  and  other  games  so  admira- 
bly described  by  Mrs.  Earle  in  her  Child  Life  in 
Colonial  Days,  to  whose  lists  may  be  added  pitching 
pennies,  "Button,  Button, "  and  "Break  the  Pope's 
Neck. "  Little  children  had  their  toys  and  dolls, 
often  imported  in  large  quantities  from  England, 
and  dolls  of  colonial  make  in  Indian  costumes.  One 
of  these,  clad  in  a  dress  with  a  flap  or  belly  clout, 
stockings,  moccasins,  and  shells  for  the  neck,  and 
with  cap  of  wampum,  an  Indian  basket,  and  a  bow 
and  arrows,  William  Byrd,  3d,  sent  as  a  present 
to  England. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   INTELLECTUAL   LIFE 

IN  all  the  colonies  interest  in  intellectual  things  was 
limited,  and  the  standards  reached  by  the  general- 
ity were  probably  no  higher  than  those  of  the 
people  at  large  in  England  in  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury.  In  proportion  to  the  population  but  few 
persons  were  highly  educated,  for  a  majority  of  the 
colonists  either  had  no  book  learning  at  all  or  had 
no  more  than  the  rudiments  of  reading,  writing, 
and  accounting.  The  back  country  and  the  fron- 
tier had  very  few  schools  of  any  kind,  and  such 
popular  education  as  was  in  vogue  was  confined 
almost  entirely  to  the  older  settled  regions  along 
the  coast,  and  there,  what  is  now  known  as  the 
education  of  the  masses  had  scarcely  yet  been 
thought  of  even  as  an  ideal.  To  the  colonials  popu- 
lar education  in  the  modern  sense  was  as  foreign  as 
were  democratic  ideas  in  government. 

The  nearest  approach  to  a  plan  of  education 

130 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  LIFE  131 

for  every  one  was  made  in  New  England,  at  least 
in  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut,  including  the 
former  colonies  of  Plymouth  and  New  Haven. 
Here  the  colonists  recognized  the  obligation  of 
teaching  all  children  something  and  imposed  on 
the  parents  or  the  towns  the  duty  of  providing 
local  schools  for  the  benefit  of  the  community. 
This  obligation  was  so  well  understood  that  in  lay- 
ing out  new  towns,  particularly  after  1715,  tracts 
were  frequently  set  aside  for  schools,  not  only  in 
Connecticut  and  Massachusetts  but  also  in  New 
Hampshire,  Maine,  and  the  Connecticut  settle- 
ment in  the  Wyoming  Valley.  The  higher  educa- 
tion necessary  for  preparing  boys  for  college  was 
furnished  partly  by  the  grammar  schools  and 
partly,  perhaps  to  a  larger  extent  in  the  earlier 
period  than  afterwards,  by  ministers  who  con- 
ducted schools  in  their  parsonages  or  rectories  in 
order  to  eke  out  their  modest  salaries. 

The  subjects  taught  in  the  log  or  clapboarded 
schoolhouses  were  reading,  writing,  arithmetic, 
and  the  catechism.  Spelling  was  introduced  early, 
with  little  effect,  however,  as  far  as  uniformity  was 
concerned;  but  English  grammar  was  not  culti- 
vated in  the  schools  even  in  the  larger  centers 
until  about  1760.  The  first  aids  to  learning  were 


132  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

the  hornbook,  the  ABC  book,  and  the  primer. 
Dilworth's  speller  was  in  general  use,  if  we  may 
judge  from  its  frequent  appearance  in  the  lists  of 
books  imported.  Governor  Wolcott  of  Connecti- 
cut tells  us  that  he  never  went  to  school  a  day  in 
his  life,  but  was  taught  by  his  mother  at  home,  and 
that  he  did  not  learn  to  read  and  write  until  he  was 
eleven  years  old;  and  his  case  was  probably  by  no 
means  exceptional.  Men  in  their  wills  often  made 
provision  for  the  education  of  their  children,  but  in 
most  cases  they  desired  nothing  more  than  reading 
and  good  penmanship ;  and  an  apprentice  who  had 
been  taught  to  write  "a  legiable  joyning  hand 
playne  to  be  read"  was  deemed  properly  treated 
by  his  master.  Grammar  schools  where  Latin  and 
Greek  were  taught  were  rare.  The  Hopkins  Gram- 
mar Schools  in  Hartford  and  New  Haven  and  the 
Boston  Latin  School  are  noteworthy  examples  of 
higher  education  in  New  England,  but  even  these 
schools  did  not  reach  a  very  high  level. 

Outside  of  New  England,  Maryland  was  the 
only  colony  which  had  a  rudimentary  system  of 
public  education,  for  under  the  Free  School  Act  of 
1694  a  series  of  schools  supported  by  the  counties 
was  planned,  to  be  free  for  all  or  at  least  a  number 
of  the  pupils  attending.  Such  schools  were  started 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  LIFE  133 

sometimes  by  persons  of  wealth  who  would  sub- 
scribe what  was  needed;  sometimes  they  were  en- 
dowed by  a  single  benefactor  who  would  give 
money  for  this  purpose  during  his  lifetime  or  by 
will  at  his  death.  The  original  purpose  of  the  free 
school  was  to  provide  an  education  for  those  who 
were  unable  to  pay  tuition.  Even  in  New  England, 
tuition  was  usually  charged  in  most  of  the  town 
schools,  particularly  of  Massachusetts,  during  the 
seventeenth  century  and  the  first  quarter  of  the 
eighteenth.  After  this  time,  however,  the  main- 
tenance of  schools  by  general  taxation  became 
more  frequent. 

How  many  such  schools  were  established  in 
Maryland  it  is  difficult  to  say.  Though  an  effort 
was  made  in  1696  to  erect  a  school  under  the  terms 
of  the  Free  School  Act,  nothing  was  accomplished 
at  the  time,  and  as  late  as  1707  Governor  Seymour 
could  say  that  not  one  step  had  been  taken  for  the 
encouragement  of  learning  in  Maryland.  The  fact 
however  that  the  school  founded  at  Annapolis  was 
called  King  William's  School  confirms  the  belief 
that  a  building  was  erected  in  1701,  before  the 
King's  death,  though  it  is  not  unlikely  that  little 
or  no  progress  was  made  during  the  first  few  years 
of  its  existence.  To  this  school,  which  was  destined 


134  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

in  time  to  grow  into  St.  John's  College,  Benjamin 
Leonard  Calvert  left  a  legacy  in  1733,  and  from 
that  date,  under  the  impetus  of  masters  and  ushers 
obtained  from  England,  its  career  was  prosperous 
and  continuous.  On  the  other  side  of  the  Bay, 
in  Queen  Anne  County,  a  second  school  was  es- 
tablished in  1723.  From  the  records,  which  are 
still  extant,  we  learn  that  the  subjects  taught 
were  reading,  writing,  arithmetic,  English,  sur- 
veying, navigation,  and  geography,  and  that  the 
school  possessed  a  fine  assortment  of  globes, 
maps,  and  charts.  It  offered  an  extensive  course 
in  mathematics,  in  which  it  made  use  of  a 
quadrant,  scales,  and  compasses,  and  many  Eng- 
lish textbooks.  For  a  colonial  school  its  collec- 
tion of  Latin  and  Greek  texts,  treatises,  and 
lexicons  was  unusually  complete.  But  despite 
its  equipment  and  the  fact  that  in  plan  and 
outfit  it  was  manifestly  ahead  of  its  time,  the 
school  had  a  checkered  career  and  a  hard  strug- 
gle for  existence. 

Among  both  the  Quakers  and  the  Germans 
education  was  intimately  bound  up  with  religion 
and  church  organization.  The  Friends'  Public 
School,  founded  at  Philadelphia  in  1689  and  des- 
tined to  become  the  Penn  Charter  School  of  today, 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  LIFE  135 

was  not  characteristic  of  the  educational  life  of 
Pennsylvania.  Wherever  they  lived,  the  Quakers 
and  Germans  tried  to  establish  schools  which  were 
more  or  less  under  the  supervision  of  their  churches 
and  hence  lay  outside  the  movement  which  led  to 
the  founding  of  the  public  school  system  in  Amer- 
ica. Though  there  were  in  Pennsylvania  many 
private  schools,  it  cannot  be  said  that  this  colony 
was  abreast  educationally  of  either  New  England 
or  Virginia.  The  Dutch  in  New  York  likewise 
established  a  system  of  parochial  schools,  of  which 
there  were  two  in  the  period  from  1751  to  1762  in 
the  city  itself.  But  by  far  the  most  elaborate  effort 
to  build  up  schools  in  the  interest  of  a  particular 
form  of  doctrine  and  worship  was  that  made  by 
the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in 
Foreign  Parts,  which,  after  its  foundation  in  1701, 
entered  upon  a  vast  scheme  of  evangelization  in 
all  the  colonies,  including  the  West  Indies.  The 
establishment  of  libraries  and  schools  formed  a 
most  important  part  of  this  undertaking.  In  New 
York  alone,  where  the  plan  found  its  most  com- 
plete application,  between  five  and  ten  elementary 
schools  were  started.  A  single  "charity"  or  free 
school  in  the  city,  which  pay  pupils  also  attended, 
was  inaugurated  in  1710  and,  under  such  deserving 


136  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

schoolmasters  as  the  Huddlestons  and  Joseph  Hil~ 
dreth,  ran  a  continuous  course  until  the  Revolu- 
tion. Though  the  subjects  taught  were  mainly  the 
three  H's,  the  Psalms,  Catechism,  Bible,  and 
church  doctrine,  it  has  been  justly  said  that  "the 
patronage  of  schools  in  America  by  this  Society 
formed  the  foremost  philanthropic  movement  in 
education  during  the  colonial  period." 

In  the  colonies  of  New  Jersey,  Virginia,  North 
and  South  Carolina,  and  Georgia,  and  to  some  ex- 
tent in  Maryland  and  New  York  also,  the  system  of 
education  in  vogue  was  a  combination  of  private 
tutors,  small  pay  schools,  and  an  occasional  en- 
dowed free  school  or  academy.  The  tutorial 
method  and  the  sending  of  children  to  England 
for  their  education  were  possible  only  among  the 
wealthier  families,  and  as  free  schools  were  not 
numerous  in  these  colonies,  it  follows  that  public 
education  there  was  not  furnished  to  the  chil- 
dren at  large.  Perth  Amboy,  for  instance,  seems  to 
have  had  no  school  at  all  until  1773,  and  though 
the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel 
sent  schoolmasters  to  Burlington,  the  results  were 
meager,  and  New  Jersey  remained  during  colonial 
times  without  an  educational  system  apart  from 
the  usual  catechizing  in  the  churches. 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  LIFE  137 

In  Virginia  education  was  largely  a  private  busi- 
ness, for  though  the  Syms  and  Eaton  free  schools, 
the  oldest  institutions  of  the  kind  in  the  colonies, 
continued  to  exist,  they  did  not  grow  either  in 
wealth  or  in  efficiency.  Virginia  had  many  pri- 
vate schools,  such  as  that  at  St.  Mary's  in  Caroline 
County,  kept  by  Jonathan  Boucher,  who,  in  addi- 
tion to  his  duties  as  rector,  took  boys  at  twenty 
pounds  for  board  and  education,  or  that  of  William 
Prentis  in  Williamsburg,  who,  though  a  clerk  at 
the  time  and  afterwards  a  merchant,  had  a  school 
where  he  taught  Latin  and  Greek  and  took  tui- 
tion fees.  Prentis's  pupils  read  Ovid,  Cato,  Quin- 
tus  Curtius,  Terence,  Justin,  Phsedrus,  Virgil,  and 
Caesar,  and  used  a  "gradus, "  a  "pantheon,"  a 
"vocabulary,"  a  Greek  grammar,  and  two  dic- 
tionaries. Sometimes  the  parents  would  advertise 
for  "any  sober  diligent  person  qualified  to  keep  a 
country  school,"  guaranteeing  a  certain  number 
of  pupils.  That  the  results  were  not  always  satis- 
factory, even  among  the  best  families,  is  apparent 
from  Nathaniel  Burwell's  unfraternal  characteri- 
zation of  his  brother  Lewis  as  one  who  could  neither 
read,  spell,  nor  cipher  correctly,  and  was  in  "no 
ways  capable  of  managing  his  own  affairs  or  fit  for 
any  gentleman's  conversation." 


138  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

Prominent  planters  obtained  tutors  from  Eng- 
land, Scotland,  and  the  Northern  Colonies,  and  the 
accounts  given  by  some  of  these  teachers  —  Ben- 
jamin Harrower  at  Captain  Daingerfield's,  Philip 
Fithian  at  Councilman  Carter's,  and  the  Reverend 
Jonathan  Boucher  at  Captain  Dixon's  —  throw 
light  on  the  conditions  attending  the  education  of 
a  planter's  children.  The  conditions  thus  described 
were  probably  more  agreeable  than  was  elsewhere 
the  case,  for  in  other  instances  not  only  were  tutors 
indentured  servants  but  frequently  were  treated 
as  such  and  made  to  feel  the  inferiority  of  their 
position.  One  John  Warden  refused  to  accept  the 
post  of  tutor  in  a  Virginia  family,  unless  the  planter 
and  his  wife  and  children  would  treat  him  "as  a 
gentleman. "  The  following  letter  from  a  Virginian 
to  Mica j  ah  Perry  of  London  in  1741  must  be  simi- 
lar to  many  dispatched  for  a  like  purpose:  "If 
possible  I  desire  you  will  send  me  by  Wilcox  a 
schoolmaster  to  teach  my  children  to  read  and 
write  and  cypher  [the  children  were  two  girls,  six- 
teen and  twelve,  and  a  boy  five  years  old] .  I  would 
willingly  have  such  a  person  as  Mr.  Lock  describes, 
but  cant  expect  such  on  such  wages  as  I  can  afford, 
but  I  desire  he  may  be  a  modest,  sober,  discreet 
person.  His  wages  I  leave  to  your  discretion,  the 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  LIFE  139 

usual  wages  here  for  a  Latin  master  from  Scotland 
is  £20  a  year,  but  they  commonly  teach  the  chil- 
dren the  Scotch  dialect  which  they  never  can  wear 
off. "  In  addition  to  his  employer's  children  the 
tutor  was  generally  allowed  to  take  other  pupils  for 
whom  he  could  charge  tuition.  Harrower  did  this 
but  had  considerable  trouble  collecting  the  fees, 
and  John  Portress  kept  a  school  on  Gibbons's  plan- 
tation in  Georgia  where  he  taught  the  neighboring 
children  writing,  grammar,  and  "practical "  mathe- 
matics. In  some  instances  the  tutor  acted  also  as  a 
general  factotum  for  the  planter,  even  serving  as 
overseer  or  steward.  James  Ellerton,  the  English 
tutor  on  Madam  Smith's  estate  in  South  Carolina, 
had  as  much  to  do  with  corn,  pigs,  and  fences  as  he 
did  with  reading  and  the  rule  of  three. 

A  great  many  New  York,  Maryland,  Virginia, 
and  South  Carolina  boys  of  the  more  wealthy 
families  were  sent  abroad  for  their  education. 
The  sons  of  Oliver  De  Lancey  of  New  York  went 
to  England,  those  of  William  Byrd,  3d,  were  at 
Sinnock's  in  Kent  in  1767,  Alexander  and  John 
Spotswood  remained  at  Eton  four  years,  and 
Samuel  Swann  of  North  Carolina  studied  in 
England  in  1758.  Keith  William  Pratt,  Thomas 
Jones's  stepson,  at  the  age  of  fourteen  was  at  Dr. 


140  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

L'Herundell's  school  in  Chelsea,  learning  French, 
Latin,  Greek,  writing,  arithmetic,  drawing,  and 
fencing  "as  far  as  it  is  thought  necessary  for  a 
gentleman."  His  sister  Betty,  aged  nine,  wrote 
him  from  Virginia,  when  he  was  eight  years  old: 
"  You  are  got  as  far  as  the  rule  of  three  in  arithme- 
tic, but  I  cant  cast  up  a  sum  in  addition  cleverly, 
but  I  am  striving  to  do  better  every  day.  I  can 
perform  a  great  many  dances  and  am  now  learning 
the  Sibell,  but  I  cannot  speak  a  word  of  French." 

Despite  their  English  education,  few  Southern 
boys  were  as  precocious  as  Jonathan  Edwards, 
who  began  Latin  at  six,  was  reading  Locke  On  the 
Human  Understanding  when  other  boys  were  lost 
in  Robinson  Crusoe, r  and  was  ready  for  college  at 
thirteen;  or  as  Samuel  Johnson,  later  president  of 
King's  College,  who  was  ambitious  to  learn  Hebrew 
at  six,  complained  of  his  tutor  as  "such  a  wretched 
poor  scholar"  at  ten,  entered  Yale  at  fourteen,  and 
capped  the  climax  of  a  long  and  erudite  career 
by  publishing  a  Hebrew  and  English  grammar  at 
the  age  of  seventy-one.  Few  could  quote  classical 
writers  or  show  such  wide  reading  and  extensive 


1  Perhaps  it  is  only  fair  to  note  that  at  a  later  date  John  C.  Calhouc 
was  reading  Locke  at  the  age  of  thirteen.  But  he  was  not  a  tidewater 
Southerner  and  furthermore  was  educated  at  Yale. 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  LIFE  141 

knowledge  of  books  as  did  Cotton  Mather  or 
Thomas  Hutchinson,  but  few  in  the  South  were 
surpassed  by  the  boys  in  the  North  in  versatility 
and  knowledge  of  the  world.  Many  Southern  lads 
went  to  the  Northern  colleges  at  Philadelphia, 
Princeton,  and  New  Haven,  and  a  few  to  North- 
ern schools  to  study  some  such  special  subject 
as  navigation. 

In  the  Carolinas  there  were  fewer  tutors  than 
in  Virginia.  A  large  number  of  private  schools, 
however,  was  maintained  in  Wilmington,  Charles- 
ton, and  Savannah.  There  was  a  provincial  free 
school  in  Charleston  and  another  at  Childesbury 
in  the  same  colony,  but  the  free  school  founded  by 
Colonel  James  Inness  "for  the  benefit  of  the  youth 
of  North  Carolina"  was  not  started  in  Wilmington 
until  1783.  South  of  Williamsburg  there  was  no 
"  seminary  for  academical  studies,"  says  Whitefield, 
who  tried  to  turn  his  Orphan  House  in  Savannah 
into  a  college  in  1764.  The  private  schools  which 
predominated  were  promoted  by  private  persons 
who  advertised  their  wares  and  offered  a  varied 
assortment  of  educational  attractions  such  as  arith- 
metic, algebra,  geometry,  trigonometry,  survey- 
ing, dialing,  navigation,  gauging,  and  fortifica- 
tion, but  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  results 


142  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

which  they  obtained  did  not  justify  the  claims  o> 
the  schoolmasters.  Some,  from  motives  in  which 
desire  for  a  living  was  probably  a  larger  factor 
than  zeal  for  education,  announced  that  they  were 
ready  "to  go  out,  to  receive  day  pupils,  or  to 
take  boarders. " 

In  the  mercantile  centers  the  desire  for  a  prac- 
tical education  was  always  strong.  As  early  as 
1713  in  New  York  a  demand  arose  for  courses  in 
navigation,  surveying,  mensuration,  astronomy, 
and  "merchants'  accounts. "  In  1755  a  master  by 
the  name  of  James  Bragg  offered  to  teach  navi- 
gation to  "gentlemen  Sailors  and  others  ...  in 
a  short  time  and  reasonable."  In  Charleston, 
George  Austin,  Henry  Laurens's  partner,  voiced  a 
general  feeling  and  forecast  a  modern  controversy 
when  he  deemed  training  in  business  more  to  his 
son's  advantage  "than  to  pore  over  Latin  and 
Greek  authors  of  little  utility  to  a  young  man  in- 
tended for  a  mercantile  career. "  Here  and  there 
throughout  the  colonies  there  were  evening  schools, 
as  in  New  York,  Charleston,  and  Savannah; 
French  schools,  as  in  New  York  and  New  Rochelle; 
besides  schools  for  dancing,  music,  and  fencing, 
and  at  least  one  school  for  teaching  "the  art  of 
manly  defense. "  Whether  shorthand  was  anywhere 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  LIFE  143 

taught  is  doubtful  and  highly  improbable,  yet  from 
Henry  Wolcott,  Jr. ,  of  Windsor  and  Roger  Williams 
of  Rhode  Island  to  Jonathan  Boucher  of  Virginia 
and  Maryland  there  were  those  who  were  familiar 
with  it,  and  occasional  references  to  writings  in 
"characters"  would  point  in  the  same  direction. 

As  far  as  girls  were  concerned,  the  opportunities 
for  education  were  limited.  As  a  rule  they  were 
not  admitted  to  the  public  schools  of  New  England, 
and  coeducation  prevailed  apparently  only  in  some 
of  the  private  schools,  the  Venerable  Society's 
Charity  School  in  New  York,  and  in  Pennsylvania, 
particularly  among  the  Germans.  In  1730  the 
Charity  School  had  sixty-eight  pupils,  twenty  of 
whom  were  girls.  The  Moravian  girls'  schools  at 
Bethlehem,  Pennsylvania,  and  Salem,  North  Caro- 
lina, were  unique  of  their  kind.  Day  schools  for 
young  ladies  were  subsequently  opened  by  men  and 
women  everywhere  for  the  teaching  of  reading, 
writing,  "flourishing,"  ciphering,  French,  English, 
and  literature,  and  for  instruction  in  embroidery, 
the  making  of  coats  of  arms,  painting,  "Dresden, 
Catgut,  and  all  sorts  of  colored  work"  and  various 
other  feminine  accomplishments  of  the  day  deemed 
"necessary,"  as  one  prospectus  puts  it,  "to  the 
amusement  of  persons  of  fortune  who  have  taste." 


144  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

A  boarding  school  for  girls  was  opened  at  Norfolk, 
Virginia,  and  another  in  Charleston,  to  the  latter 
of  which  Laurens  sent  his  eldest  daughter;  but 
boarding  schools,  though  not  uncommon  for  boys, 
particularly  after  1750,  were  rare  for  colonial 
maidens,  some  of  whom  from  the  South  were  sent 
abroad,  while  many  others  were  taught  at  home. 
Manuals  on  home  training  were  known  and  used, 
one  of  which,  The  Mother's  Advice  to  her  Daugh- 
ters, described  as  "a  small  treatise  on  the  educa- 
tion of  ladies,"  was  imported  into  New  England 
in  1766. 

Many  efforts  were  made  to  instruct  and  Chris- 
tianize both  Indians  and  negroes.  Among  the  best- 
known  of  these  are  the  labors  of  Jonathan  Edwards 
among  the  Indians  at  Stockbridge,  of  David  and 
John  Brainard  among  those  of  New  York,  New 
Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania,  and  of  Eleazer  Wheelock 
and  his  missionaries  among  the  Oneidas  and  Tus- 
caroras  and  at  the  Indian  school  in  Lebanon. 
There  was  also  an  Indian  school  connected  with 
William  and  Mary  College;  and  Massachusetts  in 
1751  proposed  to  start  two  schools  for  the  instruc- 
tion of  negro  boys  and  girls,  to  be  boarded  and 
taught  at  the  expense  of  the  colony.  The  Society 
for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  made  this  work 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  LIFE  145 

a  very  important  part  of  its  program  and  instructed 
its  missionaries  and  schoolmasters  "to  be  ready, 
as  they  have  opportunity,  to  teach  and  instruct  the 
Indians  and  Negroes  and  their  children."  As  a 
consequence  schools  for  this  purpose  were  opened 
in  many  colonial  towns  and  parishes.  The  pioneer, 
Dr.  McSparran,  gave  much  of  his  time  to  catechiz- 
ing and  teaching  both  Indians  and  Negroes,  and 
there  must  have  been  others  of  the  clergy  doing  the 
same  unselfish  work.  Even  Harrower,  the  Virginia 
tutor  already  mentioned,  read  and  taught  the 
catechism  to  a  "small  congregation  of  negroes"  on 
Captain  Daingerfield's  plantation.  One  of  the 
most  famous  efforts  of  missionary  education  was 
that  of  Commissary  Garden  of  South  Carolina,  who 
started  a  negro  school  in  Charleston  in  1744,  to 
which  "all  the  negro  and  Indian  children  of  the 
parish"  were  to  go  for  instruction  "without  any 
charge  to  their  masters."  Funds  were  collected, 
a  building  was  erected,  and  the  school  continued 
for  twenty-two  years  with  from  thirty  to  seventy 
children,  who  were  taught  reading,  spelling,  and 
the  chief  principles  of  the  Christian  religion. 

In  the  realm  of  the  higher  education,  three 
colleges,  Harvard,  William  and  Mary,  and  Yale, 
were  already  prominent  colonial  institutions,  but 


146  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

Princeton  in  1753  was  still  "our  little  infant  col- 
lege of  New  Jersey, "  and  the  College  of  Rhode  Is- 
land (now  Brown  University),  and  Dartmouth,  the 
outgrowth  of  Wheelock's  work  at  Lebanon,  were 
hardly  as  yet  fairly  on  their  feet.  King's  College 
(now  Columbia  University)  and  the  College  and 
Academy  of  Philadelphia  (now  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania), organized  to  promote  more  liberal  and 
practical  studies,  were  just  entering  on  their  great 
careers.  The  degrees  granted  by  the  colleges  were 
Bachelor  of  Arts  and  honorary  Master  of  Arts,  to 
which  in  some  instances  Bachelors  of  Arts  of  other 
colleges  were  admitted.  Higher  degrees,  such  as 
Doctor  of  Divinity,  Doctor  of  Laws,  and  Doctor  of 
Civil  Law,  were  not  conferred  by  American  colleges 
but  were  granted  to  many  a  colonist,  chiefly  among 
the  clergy,  by  Oxford,  Cambridge,  Aberdeen,  Glas- 
gow, and,  highest  in  repute,  by  Edinburgh.  Occa- 
sionally a  colonist  received  a  degree  from  a  con- 
tinental university  such  as  Padua  or  Utrecht. 
Though  the  cost  of  a  degree  in  those  days  ran  as 
high  as  twenty -five  pounds,  there  was  considerable 
competition  among  the  New  England  clergy  to  ob- 
tain this  distinction  and  not  a  little  wirepulling 
was  involved  in  the  process. 

For  professional  training  in  medicine,  surgery, 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  LIFE  14T 

law,  and  art,  many  colonists  went  abroad  to  Eng- 
land, Scotland,  and  the  Continent,  where  they 
studied  anatomy,  surgery,  medicine,  pharmacy, 
and  chemistry,  read  law  at  one  or  other  of  the  Inns 
of  Court  in  London,  or  traveled,  as  did  Benjamin 
West  and  John  Singleton  Copley,  to  see  the  leading 
galleries  of  Europe.  One  of  the  first  to  study  sur- 
gery abroad  was  Thomas  Bulfinch  of  Boston,  who 
was  in  Paris  in  1720  studying  obstetrics.  He  de- 
clared in  his  letters  that  few  surgeons  in  America 
knew  much  of  the  business  and  that  there  was  no 
place  in  the  world  like  Paris.  "I  am  studying, "  he 
writes,  "with  the  greatest  man  midwife  in  Paris 
(and  I  might  say  in  the  universe  for  that  business)." 
In  1751  his  son  Thomas  also  went  over  to  study 
pharmacy  and  boarded  in  London  at  the  "chym- 
ists  where  drugs  and  medicines  were  prepared  for 
the  hospitals. "  Later  he  turned  to  surgery,  rose 
at  seven,  as  he  wrote  his  father,  walked  to  Great 
Marlboro  Street,  Soho,  three  miles  away  from  his 
lodgings  in  Friday  Street,  St.  Paul's,  where,  "I  am 
busied  in  dissection  of  dead  bodies  to  four  in  the 
afternoon,  and  often  times  don't  allow  myself  time 
to  dine.  At  six  I  go  to  Mr.  Hunter's  lecture  [in 
anatomy],  where  I  am  kept  till  nine. "  He  tells  us 
that  he  did  chemical  experiments  in  his  chamber 


148  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

and  diverted  himself  by  seeing  Garrick  act.  But 
the  majority  of  colonial  doctors  who  studied  abroad 
went  to  Edinburgh.  Dr.  Walter  Jones  of  Virginia, 
one  of  the  most  distinguished  of  them,  took  his 
degree  there  in  1769,  and  has  left  us  in  his  letters 
a  delightful  account  of  his  sojourn  in  that  city. 

The  colonists  spoke  a  variety  of  languages. 
There  were  thousands  who  could  not  write  or  speak 
English,  particularly  among  those  who,  like  the 
Germans,  came  from  foreign  lands  and  not  only 
retained  but  taught  their  native  tongue  in  Amer- 
ica. The  Celtic  Highlanders  who  settled  at  Cross 
Creek  wrote  and  spoke  Gaelic,  and  specimens  of 
their  letters  and  accounts  still  survive.  Dutch 
continued  to  be  spoken  in  New  York,  and  in  Al- 
bany and  its  neighborhood  it  was  the  prevailing 
tongue  in  colonial  times  and  even  long  after  the 
colonial  period  had  come  to  an  end.  Many  of  the 
New  York  merchants  were  bilinguists.  and  some 
of  them  —  Robert  Sanders,  for  example,  —  wrote 
readily  in  English,  Dutch,  and  French.  The  Hu- 
guenots adapted  themselves  to  the  use  of  English 
more  easily  than  did  the  Germans  and  Dutch, 
though  many  of  them  in  New  York  and  South 
Carolina  continued  to  use  French,  with  the  result 
that  even  their  negroes  acquired  a  kind  of  French 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  LIFE  149 

lingo.  The  advantage  of  knowing  French  was 
generally  recognized  and  among  those  who  re- 
gretted their  inability  to  speak  the  language  was 
Cuyler  of  New  York.  A  knowledge  of  French  was 
desired  partly  as  an  accomplishment  and  partly  as 
a  business  asset,  for  those  who,  like  Charles  Carroll, 
had  been  educated  in  France  thus  had  a  distinct 
advantage  over  their  fellows. 

Other  languages  were  less  generally  understood. 
Moses  Lindo,  the  indigo  inspector  of  Charleston, 
was  one  of  those  who  spoke  Spanish,  and  many  of 
the  Jewish  merchants  and  some  of  the  foreign  in- 
dentured servants  were  familiar  with  both  Spanish 
and  Portuguese.  There  must  have  been  interpre- 
ters of  Spanish  in  Connecticut  in  1752  when  there 
was  some  trouble  over  a  Spanish  ship  at  New 
London,  for  much  of  the  evidence  is  in  Spanish, 
and  Governor  Wolcott,  who  knew  nothing  of  the 
language,  had  the  documents  translated  for  him. 
To  a  greater  extent  even  than  today,  the  exigen- 
cies of  commerce  demanded  of  those  trading  with 
France,  Holland,  Spain,  Portugal,  and  the  West 
Indies  a  knowledge  of  the  languages  used  in  those 
countries.  Many  colonists  who  wTent  as  merchants 
or  factors  to  Amsterdam,  Bordeaux,  Lisbon,  or  the 
towns  cf  the  foreign  West  Indies,  became  proficient 


150  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

in  one  or  more  tongues.  In  all  the  colonies  there 
were  agents  and  missionaries  who  were  familiar 
with  Indian  speech.  In  addition  to  such  profes- 
sionals as  Conrad  Weiser,  Daniel  Claus,  Peter 
Wraxall,  and  Wheelock's  missionaries,  there  were 
others  who,  though  less  regularly  employed,  ac- 
quired in  one  way  or  another  a  knowledge  of  Indian 
speech  and  were  able  to  act  as  interpreters.  Many 
of  the  slaves  were  African  Negroes  who  spoke  no 
English  at  all  or  only  what  was  called  "Black  Eng- 
lish, "  and  for  that  reason  among  others  the  Negro 
born  in  America  always  commanded  a  higher  price 
in  the  market.  Among  the  indentured  servants 
were  large  numbers  of  Welsh  who  spoke  only  Gael- 
ic, of  English  who  spoke  only  their  Cornish,  Somer- 
setshire, Lancashire,  or  Yorkshire  dialect,  and  of 
Irish  who  spoke  "with  the  brogue  very  much  on 
their  tongues. " 

Not  only  were  there  thousands  of  men  and 
women  in  the  colonies  who  could  hardly  read  and 
who  could  only  make  their  mark,  but  there  were 
also  thousands  who  had  little  or  no  interest  in 
reading  or  in  collecting  books.  The  smaller  farmers 
and  planters,  artisans  and  laborers,  confined  their 
reading  to  the  Bible  or  New  Testament,  the  psalter 
or  hymn  book,  and  an  occasional  religious  work 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  LIFE  151 

such  as  the  Practice  of  Piety  or  Pilgrim9 s  Progress. 
Printed  sermons  also  were  popular,  particularly 
after  1740,  when  those  of  Whitefield  began  to  be 
circulated.  Among  the  volumes  with  which  the 
colonial  reader  was  familiar  were  the  almanacs  - 
the  Farmer's  Almanac  of  Whittemore  or  Nathaniel 
Ames  in  Massachusetts,  Wells's  Register  and  Al- 
manac, the  Hochdeutsche-Amerikanische  Kalender, 
Tobler's  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  Almanac,  and 
scores  of  others.  From  these  the  colonists  ob- 
tained all  the  scientific  knowledge  they  possessed 
of  sun,  moon,  tides,  and  weather  predictions,  as 
well  as  a  great  variety  of  religious,  political,  and 
miscellaneous  information,  a  diverting  assortment 
of  jokes,  puzzles,  and  charades  for  idle  hours,  and 
tables  of  exchanges,  interest,  and  money  values  for 
the  man  of  business.  Except  the  Bible,  probably 
no  book  was  held  in  greater  esteem  or  was  more 
widely  read  in  the  colonies  in  the  eighteenth 
century  than  the  almanac.  In  various  forms 
and  from  the  hands  of  many  publishers  it  cir- 
culated from  coast  to  back  country  and  from 
Maine  to  Georgia  and  was  the  colonists'  vade 
mecum  of  knowledge.  It  was  even  more  popu- 
lar than  the  newspaper,  which,  though  issued  at 
this  time  in  all  the  colonies  except  New  Jersey, 


152  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

was  expensive,   difficult  to  distribute,   and  very 
limited  in  circulation. 

Collections  of  books,  other  than  those  on  the 
shelves  of  the  libraries  and  in  the  stocks  of  the 
booksellers,  were  largely  confined  to  the  houses 
of  ministers,  lawyers,  doctors,  wealthy  merchants, 
and  planters.  Early  libraries,  such  as  those  of 
John  Goodburne  in  Virginia  (1635),  William  Brew- 
ster  in  Plymouth  (1644),  and  Samuel  Eaton  in 
New  Haven  (1656),  were  brought  from  England 
and  consisted  chiefly  of  theological  works,  with  a 
sprinkling  of  classical  authors  and  a  few  books  on 
mathematics  and  geography.  None  of  these  collec- 
tions contained  works  of  fiction.  William  Brewster 
had  a  volume  or  two  of  poetry  and  history.  The 
library  of  William  FitzHugh  of  Virginia  (1671) 
included  books  on  history,  law,  medicine,  physics, 
and  morals,  but  nothing  of  literature,  essays,  poet- 
ry, or  romance.  The  law  library  of  Arthur  Spicer 
of  Virginia  (1701)  was  remarkable  for  its  scope 
and  variety;  and  the  briefs  of  his  contemporaries, 
William  Pitkin  and  Richard  Edwards  of  Connecti- 
cut, show  that  they  too  must  have  had  the  use  of 
the  leading  law  books  of  the  day.  Cotton  Mather's 
library  began  when  the  owner  was  but  nineteen 
with  ninety-six  volumes,  of  which  eighty-one  were 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  LIFE  153 

theological  and  the  remainder  works  on  history,, 
philosophy,  and  philology.  The  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, both  in  England  and  America,  was  mani- 
festly an  age  of  heavy  literature. 

With  the  reigns  of  Anne  and  the  Georges,  a  new 
literary  activity  began  to  make  itself  felt.  Locali- 
ties occupied  by  Quakers,  Moravians,  Wesleyans, 
and  Covenanters  disclose  large  numbers  of  books 
of  denominational  piety,  many  of  them  in  Dutch, 
German,  and  Gaelic.  Among  those  in  English 
were  Ell  wood's  Life,  Penn's  No  Cross,  No  Crown, 
Elias  Hook's  Spirits  of  the  Martyrs  Revived,  Sew- 
all's  History,  Barclay's  Apology,  Fox's  Journal, 
and  Boston's  Fourfold  State.  The  increased  inter- 
est in  agriculture,  commerce,  law,  government,  and 
housekeeping  led  the  colonists  to  read  books  of  a 
practical  nature  such  as  The  Art  of  Cooking,  The 
Complete  Housewife,  Miller's  Gardener* s Dictionary, 
Longley's  Book  of  Gardening,  Burrough's  Naviga- 
tion Book,  Leadbetter's  Dialling,  Wright's  Negotia- 
tor, Mathew's  Concerning  Computation  of  Time, 
Mair's  Bookkeeping,  and  other  brochures  relating 
to  commerce,  as  well  as  many  works,  too  numerous 
to  be  cited  here,  on  law,  local  government,  the 
practice  of  medicine,  anatomy,  surgery,  surveying, 
and  navigation.  There  were  also  many  editions 


154  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

of  the  British  statutes,  law  reports,  proceedings  of 
Parliament,  and  treatises  on  admiralty  and  marine 
matters,  all  of  which  were  imported.  Many  of  the 
leading  men,  particularly  in  the  South,  subscribed 
regularly  to  the  London  Magazine,  the  Gentleman  s 
Magazine,  Rider's  Almanac,  Eachard's  Gazetteer, 
the  Court  Calendar,  and  other  British  periodical 
publications. 

There  was  a  close  literary  relation  maintained 
between  England  and  the  colonies,  and  newspapers, 
books,  and  magazines  were  constantly  sent  by 
merchants  across  the  Atlantic  to  their  correspond- 
ents in  America.  An  ever  widening  interest  in 
public  affairs  was  bringing  in  a  steadily  increas- 
ing number  of  histories,  biographies,  voyages,  and 
travels  —  such  as  the  histories  of  Rapin,  Robert- 
son, Mosheim,  Raleigh,  Clarendon,  Burnet,  Hume, 
Voltaire,  and  Salmon;  the  lives  of  Julius  Caesar, 
Oliver  Cromwell,  Louis  XII,  Marlborough,  and 
Eugene  of  Savoy ;  and  the  voyages  of  Churchill  and 
Anson.  As  time  went  on,  an  improving  taste  on 
the  part  of  the  colonists  for  poetry,  essays,  and 
fiction,  and  translations  from  the  classics  and  for- 
eign languages  began  to  show  itself.  Among  the 
chief  poets  were  Chaucer,  Milton,  Dryden,  and 
Pope,  as  well  as  such  minor  men  as  Gower,  Butler, 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  LIFE  155 

Donne,  Waller,  Herbert,  Cowley,  Congreve,  and 
Prior.  Among  the  essays  popular  in  the  colonies 
were  those  of  Montaigne,  Bacon,  Swift,  and  Boling- 
broke,  as  well  as  the  contributions  of  Steele  and 
Addison  to  the  Tatler  and  the  Spectator  and  of 
Johnson  to  the  Rambler.  In  fiction  we  find  the 
writings  of  Richardson,  Fielding,  Sterne,  Gold- 
smith, and  Aphra  Behn,  and  the  romances,  The 
Turkish  Spy,  The  London  Spy,  and  The  Jewish 
Spy;  and  in  the  drama  the  works  of  Ben  Jonson, 
Shakespeare,  and  Dryden.  Among  the  transla- 
tions from  other  languages  were  the  Iliad  and  the 
Odyssey,  Cervantes's  Don  Quixote,  Lesage's  Gil  Bias 
and  Le  Diable  Boiteux,  Montesquieu's  Lettres  per- 
sanes,  and  the  Memoir es  of  Cardinal  de  Retz,  which 
was  amazingly  popular.  For  young  people  there 
were  Gulliver's  Travels,  Robinson  Crusoe,  The  Ara- 
bian Nights,  and  a  great  abundance  of  fables,  gift 
books,  and  short  histories. 

As  an  indication  of  the  range  and  variety  of  these 
colonial  collections  of  books  it  is  interesting  to 
note  that  here  and  there  were  to  be  found  such 
works  as  Hoyle's  Games,  Memoirs  of  Gamesters, 
Madox  on  the  Exchequer,  Harrington's  Oceana, 
and  even  More's  Utopia.  As  for  law  books,  Robert 
Bell,  the  publisher  of  Philadelphia,  imported  in 


156  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

1771  a  thousand  sets  of  the  English  edition  of 
Biackstone's  Commentaries,  and  himself  issued  a 
thousand  sets  more  in  four  royal  octavo  volumes, 
which  he  sold  by  subscription.  Henceforth  we 
begin  to  find,  for  the  first  time,  copies  of  Black- 
stone  appearing  in  colonial  libraries  and  inven- 
tories. In  many  of  the  private  libraries  were  works 
in  French,  but  rarely  in  other  languages  except 
among  the  Germans.  Grey  Elliott,  an  English 
official  in  Savannah,  was  apparently  an  exception, 
for  he  had  two  hundred  volumes  "in  several  lan- 
guages," but  what  these  languages  were  we  do 
not  know.  In  all  libraries  were  to  be  found  works 
issued  from  the  various  presses  in  America.  The 
books  of  Councilman  Carter  of  Nomini  Hall  num- 
bered 1503  volumes,  and  those  of  William  Byrd, 
3d,  of  which  there  were  more  than  four  thou- 
sand in  many  languages,  constituted  what  was 
probably  at  that  time  the  largest  private  library 
in  America. 

The  practice  of  lending  books  was  bound  to  be 
common  in  a  country  where  they  were  rare  and 
expensive  and  where  neighborliness  was  a  virtue. 
A  number  of  lists  which  are  in  existence  show 
the  prevalence  of  the  custom.  The  catalogue  of 
the  library  of  Godfrey  Pole  of  Virginia  (1716), 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  LIFE  157 

containing  115  titles,  shows  that  about  thirty  books 
were  out  on  loan  and  that  several  others  had  been 
lent  and  returned.  In  colonial  correspondence  we 
come  upon  such  notes  as  this  from  a  Dr.  Farquhar- 
son  of  Charleston  to  Peter  Manigault  in  1756,  in 
which  he  says  that  he  is  sending  back  "the  books 
and  magazines  and  would  be  obliged  for  a  reading 
of  Mr.  Pope's  works. " 

From  lending  books  as  a  personal  favor  it  was 
but  a  short  step  to  the  establishment  of  private 
circulating  libraries.  As  early  as  the  beginning 
of  the  eighteenth  century  the  Reverend  Thomas 
Bray,  commissary  of  Maryland,  had  begun  his 
series  of  "lending  libraries"  in  "the  Market 
Towns "  for  "any  of  the  clergy  to  have  recourse  to 
or  to  borrow  books  out  of,  as  there  shall  be  occa- 
sion." How  many  such  lending  libraries  were 
actually  established  it  is  difficult  to  say,  but  there 
was  one  at  Bath,  North  Carolina,  and  another  at 
Annapolis.  There  appear  to  have  been,  particu- 
larly in  the  South,  other  collections  quasi  public 
in  character,  such  as  the  private  library  of  Ed- 
ward Moseley  of  Eden  ton,  which  was  thrown  open 
for  public  use.  These  libraries  differed  from  the 
circulating  libraries  of  such  booksellers  as  Gar- 
ret Noel  of  New  York  and  John  Mein  of  Boston, 


158  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

for  example,  in  that  no  charge  was  made  for  the 
privilege  of  borrowing. 

Perhaps  the  first  library  that  may  in  a  sense  be 
called  public  was  that  owned  by  the  town  of  Bos  - 
ton  and  kept  in  the  "library  room"  of  the  Town 
House.  It  was  started  in  1656  and  came  to  an  un- 
timely end  in  the  fire  of  1747.  While  it  may  have 
been  accessible  to  readers,  it  was  in  no  sense  a 
lending  library,  for  its  massive  folios  and  their 
equally  ponderous  contents  must  have  made  little 
appeal  to  any  but  the  clergy.  Much  more  impor- 
tant as  an  aid  to  the  spread  of  good  literature  \\  ere 
the  subscription  libraries  which  came  into  exist- 
ence as  soon  as  books  were  made  less  bulky  and 
more  interesting  and  entertaining.  Before  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  associations  be- 
gan to  be  formed  for  the  buying  and  lending  of 
books.  Of  these  the  most  famous  was  the  Library 
Association  of  Philadelphia,  founded  in  1731  by  a 
group  of  fifty  persons,  headed  by  Franklin,  which 
ten  years  later  published  its  first  real  catalogue. 
The  Pomfret  Association  of  Connecticut  was  es- 
tablished in  1740,  that  of  Charleston  in  1748,  and 
that  of  Lancaster  in  1759.  To  the  last  named  Gov- 
ernor Hamilton  and  many  leading  Permsylvanians 
gave  money,  globes,  and  astronomical  apparatus. 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  LIFE  159 

Other  instances  of  the  spread  of  this  movement 
were  the  Georgia  Library,  started  in  1763,  and  the 
Social  Library  at  Salem,  Massachusetts,  estab- 
lished some  time  before  the  Revolution.  But  there 
was  at  that  time  in  the  colonies  no  library  sup- 
ported by  public  funds  and  similar  to  the  free 
public  libraries  of  today. 

The  bookseller  was  an  important  colonial  char- 
acter. Though  many  of  the  colonists  imported 
their  own  books  directly  from  England,  by  far  the 
larger  number  obtained  what  they  wanted  from 
those  who  made  bookselling  a  trade.  Merchants 
and  storekeepers  in  all  the  large  towns  and  along 
the  Maryland  and  Virginia  rivers  carried  in  stock 
books  which  they  obtained  from  England  and 
Scotland.  The  inventories  and  invoices  of  these 
dealers  are  always  interesting  as  showing  their  esti- 
mate of  the  popular  taste.  Though  John  Usher  of 
Boston  and  Portsmouth  was  merchant  and  book- 
seller combined,  few  of  the  merchants  did  more 
than  carry  a  small  stock  of  books  for  sale,  while  on 
the  other  hand  scarcely  any  of  the  booksellers  con- 
cerned themselves  with  trade.  They  imported  and 
sold  books,  published  books  and  pamphlets,  bound 
books,  did  job  printing  of  all  kinds,  including 
blank  forms  for  bonds,  certificates,  mortgages,  and 


160  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

charter  parties.  They  also  made  up  and  issued  the 
newspapers  of  the  day,  served  generally  as  public 
printers  for  their  colonies,  acted  as  postmasters  in 
many  towns,  kept  inquiry  bureaus  and  intelligence 
offices  for  their  localities,  and  were  a  local  source  of 
information.  They  also  sold  pens,  ink,  stationery, 
and  all  sorts  of  school  necessities.  The  scope  of 
their  activities  was  perhaps  less  varied  in  the  North 
than  in  the  South,  but  everywhere  they  were  indis- 
pensable in  the  life  of  their  neighborhood.  So 
important  did  these  men  become  in  colonial  life 
that  when  Boston  suffered  heavily  by  the  great 
fire  of  1711  her  most  serious  loss  was  the  destruc- 
tion of  nearly  all  her  bookselling  establishments. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE    CURE    OF    SOULS 

THERE  were  many  religious  denominations  in 
America  in  the  eighteenth  century.  The  Congre- 
gationalists  predominated  in  New  England,  but 
outside  of  that  region  they  found  little  support. 
The  Church  of  England  was  dominant  in  the 
South  and  by  1750  had  established  itself  in  every 
colony  from  New  Hampshire  to  Georgia.  This 
growth  was  due  in  part  to  the  fact  that  most  of 
the  Huguenots  and  many  of  the  Lutherans  went 
over  to  Anglicanism,  but  also  in  largest  measure 
to  the  activities  of  the  Society  for  the  Propa- 
gation of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts,  generally 
known  as  the  "S.  P.  G."  but  frequently  called 
the  "Venerable  Society." 

The  Dutch  in  their  Reformed  Church  consti- 
tuted the  oldest  body  of  Calvinists  in  America. 
The  Germans  —  some  of  them  also  Calvinists  in 
their  own  Reformed  Church  —  were  in  many  cases 

ii  161 


162  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

Lutherans  or  Moravians,  chiefly  in  New  York, 
Pennsylvania,  and  North  Carolina,  and  in  other 
cases  were  tinctured  with  pietism  and  mysticism. 
The  Scotch-Irish  were  of  a  sterner  religious  temper 
than  any  of  these  and,  tracing  their  spiritual  an- 
cestry back  to  the  Presbyterianism  of  Scotland  and 
the  north  of  Ireland,  they  looked  upon  their  re- 
ligion as  a  subject  worthy  of  constant  thought  and 
frequent  discussion. 

Among  the  denominations  associated  with  no 
particular  race  or  locality,  the  Baptists  were  never- 
theless most  strongly  entrenched  in  Rhode  Island, 
with  a  somewhat  precarious  hold  on  other  parts  of 
New  England  and  on  South  Carolina.  The  Friends 
or  Quakers,  finding  their  earliest  home  also  in 
Rhode  Island,  became  specially  prominent  in  the 
Middle  Colonies,  Virginia,  and  North  Carolina, 
where  their  meetinghouses  were  often  "in  lone- 
some places  in  the  woods."  The  Methodists,  at 
this  time  with  no  thought  of  becoming  a  separate 
denomination,  began  their  career  as  a  spiritual 
force  in  America  with  Robert  Strawbridge  in 
western  Maryland  about  1764.  Most  of  the  Roman 
Catholics  were  to  be  found  in  Maryland  and  a  few 
in  other  colonies ;  the  Jews  had  synagogues  in  New- 
port, New  York,  Philadelphia,  and  Charleston; 


THE  CURE  OF  SOULS  163 

but  there  was  no  separate  African  church  until  the 
first  was  set  up  in  Williamsburg  in  1791. 

Of  all  these  denominations  the  most  powerful 
and  influential  were  the  Congregational  and  the 
Anglican,  so  that  the  meetinghouse  in  New  Eng- 
land and  the  church  in  the  Southern  Colonies 
came  to  be  distinctive  and  conspicuous  features  in 
the  religious  life  of  America.  The  meetinghouse, 
usually  built  of  wood  but  toward  the  end  of  the 
period  sometimes  of  brick,  was  situated  in  the 
center  of  the  town.  It  was  at  first  a  plain,  un- 
adorned, rectangular  structure,  sometimes  painted 
and  sometimes  not,  without  tower  or  steeple,  and 
not  unlike  the  Quaker  meetinghouse  and  the  Wes- 
leyan  chapel  of  a  later  day.  Later  buildings  were 
constructed  after  English  models,  with  the  graceful 
spite  characteristic  of  the  work  of  Sir  Christopher 
Wren,  and  represented  a  type  to  which  the  Presby- 
terian and  Dutch  Reformed  churches  tended  to 
conform.  At  one  end  of  the  building  rose  the 
tower  and  spire,  with  a  bell  and  a  clock,  if  the  con- 
gregation could  afford  them;  at  the  other  end  or  at 
the  side  was  the  porch.  In  addition  to  the  pleasing 
proportions  which  the  building  as  a  whole  showed, 
even  the  doors  and  windows  manifested  a  certain 
striving  for  architectural  beauty  of  a  refined  and 


164  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

rather  severe  kind.  The  interior  was  usually  bare 
and  unattractive;  the  pulpit  stood  on  one  side, 
high  above  the  pews,  and  was  made  in  the  shape 
of  an  hourglass  or  with  a  curved  front,  and  stood 
under  a  sounding  board,  which  was  introduced  less 
perhaps  for  its  acoustic  value  than  to  increase  the 
dignity  of  the  preacher.  The  body  of  the  house  was 
filled  with  high  square  pews,  within  which  were 
movable  seats  capable  of  being  turned  back  for  the 
convenience  of  the  worshipers,  who  always  stood 
during  the  long  prayers.  The  pews  were  the  prop- 
erty of  the  occupiers,  who  viewed  them  as  part  of 
the  family  patrimony.  Assignment  of  pews  fol- 
lowed social  rank;  front  seats  were  reserved  for  the 
deacons;  convenient  sittings  were  set  apart  for  the 
deaf;  the  side  seats  were  for  those  of  lesser  degree, 
and  the  gallery  for  the  children.  There  were  no  free 
seats  in  colonial  days,  except  for  the  very  poor.  In 
these  meetinghouses  there  were  neither  fires  nor 
lights,  with  the  result  that  evening  services  could  not 
be  held.  In  the  winter  season  the  chill  of  the  build- 
ing must  have  wrought  havoc  upon  tender  physiques 
and  imperiled  the  lives  of  those  unlucky  infants 
whose  fate  it  was  to  be  baptized  with  icy  water. x 

1  "It  was  so  cold  a  Lord's  Day,"  says  Checkley  in  bis  diary  (Jafr 
19,  1735),  "that  the  water  for  Baptism  was  considerably  frozen." 


THE  CURE  OF  SOULS  165 

The  journey  to  meeting  was  frequently  an  ardu- 
ous undertaking  for  those  living  in  the  outlying 
parts  of  a  township,  as  they  sometimes  were 
obliged  to  cross  mountains  and  rivers  in  order  to  be 
present.  From  distant  points  the  farmers  drove  to 
meeting,  bringing  their  wives  and  children  and  pre- 
pared to  spend  the  day.  In  summer  they  brought 
their  own  dinners  with  them;  in  winter  they 
found  refuge  in  the  "Sabba'  day"  houses  or  were 
entertained  at  the  fireside  of  friends  who  lived  near 
the  meetinghouse.  The  gathering  of  the  towns- 
people at  meeting  was  a  social  as  well  as  a  religious 
event,  for  friends  had  an  opportunity  for  greeting 
each  other,  and  the  farmers  exchanged  news  and 
talked  crops  during  the  noon  hour,  in  the  shade 
of  the  building,  under  the  wagon  sheds  where  the 
horses  were  tied,  or  sitting  on  the  tombstones 
in  the  burying  ground  near  by,  while  their  wives 
and  daughters  gossiped  in  the  porch  or  even  in 
the  pews,  for  in  New  England  no  one  looked 
upon  the  meetinghouse  as  merely  a  sacred  place. 
One  of  the  earliest  steps  taken  in  the  formation 
of  a  new  town  in  New  England  was  the  erec- 
tion of  a  separate  meetinghouse  for  the  mem- 
bers who  lived  too  far  away  for  convenient  and 
regular  attendance. 


166  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

The  minister  was  truly  the  leader  of  his  people. 
He  comforted  and  reproved  them,  guided  their 
spiritual  footsteps,  advised  them  in  matters  domes- 
tic and  civil,  and  gave  unity  to  their  ecclesiastical 
life.  He  was  the  chief  citizen  of  the  town,  rever- 
enced by  the  old  and  regarded  with  something  akin 
to  awe  by  the  young.  When  a  stranger  asked  Par- 
son Phillips  of  the  South  Church  at  Andover  if  he 
were  "  the  parson  who  serves  here, "  he  received  the 
reply,  "I  am,  Sir,  the  parson  who  rules  here,"  and 
the  external  bearing  of  this  colonial  minister  lent 
weight  to  his  claim.  It  was  the  habit  of  Parson 
Phillips  to  walk  with  his  household  in  a  stately 
procession  from  the  parsonage  to  the  meeting- 
house, with  his  wife  on  his  right,  his  negro  servant 
on  his  left,  and  his  children  following  in  the  rear. 
When  he  entered  the  building,  the  congregation 
rose  and  stood  until  he  had  taken  his  place  in  the 
pulpit.  Though  he  preached  with  an  hourglass  at 
his  side,  he  never  failed  to  run  over  the  conven- 
tional sixty  minutes.  His  sermons,  like  nearly  all 
those  preached  in  New  England,  were  written  out 
and  read  with  solemnity  and  rarely  with  attempts 
at  oratory.  They  were  blunt  and  often  terrify- 
ing; they  laid  down  unpalatable  ethical  standards; 
they  emphasized  rigid  theological  doctrines;  and  in 


THE  CURE  OF  SOULS  167 

language  which  was  plain,  earnest,  and  uncom- 
promising, they  inveighed  against  such  human 
weaknesses  as  swearing,  drunkenness,  fornication, 
and  sleeping  in  church.  Mather  Byles  of  Boston, 
another  colonial  pastor,  preached  an  hour  and 
then  turning  over  the  hourglass  said,  "Now  we 
will  take  a  second  glass. "  Sermons  of  two  hours 
were  not  unknown,  and  there  were  those  who  "in 
one  lazy  tone,  through  the  long,  heavy,  painful 
page"  drawled  on,  making  work  for  the  tith- 
ingman,  whose  fur-tipped  rod  was  often  needed 
to  waken  the  slumbering.  The  thrifty  colonial 
preacher  numbered  his  sermons,  stored  them  away 
or  bound  them  in  volumes,  and  often  repeated 
them  many  times. 

The  hardships  of  the  New  England  minister 
were  many.  Jonathan  Lee  of  Salisbury,  Connec- 
ticut, occupied,  until  his  log  house  was  finished, 
a  room  temporarily  fitted  up  at  the  end  of  a  black- 
smith's shop  with  stools  for  chairs  and  slabs  for 
tables.  He  even  had  at  times  to  carry  his  own 
corn  to  the  mill  to  be  ground.  As  country  parishes 
were  large  and  rambling  and  the  congregation 
was  widely  scattered,  the  minister  often  preached 
in  different  sections  and  was  obliged  to  ride  many 
miles  to  visit  and  comfort  his  parishioners.  His 


168  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

salary  was  small,  fifty  pounds  and  upwards,  with 
more  if  he  were  married.  Jonathan  Edwards  in 
1744  wrote  to  his  people  in  Northampton  that  he 
wanted  a  fixed  salary  and  not  one  determined  from 
year  to  year,  as  he  had  a  growing  family  to  provide 
for.  Many  a  minister  received  a  part  of  his  stipend 
in  provisions  and  firewood,  and  eked  out  his  meager 
salary  by  earning  a  little  money  taking  pupils. 
Yet  in  spite  of  these  hardships  men  stayed  long  in 
the  places  to  which  they  were  called.  Pastorates 
of  sixty  years  are  known;  Eliphalet  Williams  of 
Glastonbury  served  fifty -five  years,  and  his  grand- 
father, father,  and  son  each  ministered  half  a  cen- 
tury or  longer.  Three  generations  of  Baptist  clergy- 
men in  Groton  served  one  church  125  years. 

The  New  England  ministers  did  not  limit  their 
preaching  to  the  Sabbath  day  or  their  sermons  to 
theological  and  ethical  subjects.  They  officiated 
on  many  public  occasions  —  at  funerals,  installa- 
tions, and  ordinations,  on  fast  days,  Thanksgiving 
days,  and  election  days  —  and  often  forced  the 
Governor  and  deputies  to  listen  to  a  sermon  two 
or  three  hours  long.  Many  of  these  sermons  were 
printed  by  the  colony,  by  the  church,  by  subscrip- 
tion, or  in  the  case  of  funeral  sermons  by  special 
provision  in  the  will  of  the  deceased.  Parson 


THE  CURE  OF  SOULS  169 

Phillips  had  twenty  such  sermons  printed,  and  on 
the  title-page  of  one  dealing  with  some  terrifying 
topic  appears  an  ominous  skull  and  crossbones. 
Funeral  discourses  and  election  sermons  are  among 
the  commonest  which  have  survived,  but,  taken  as 
a  whole,  they  are  unfortunately  among  the  least 
trustworthy  of  historical  records. 

The  Anglican  churches  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury were  generally  built  of  brick  but  varied  con- 
siderably in  size,  shape,  and  adornment.  Except 
for  a  few  —  such  as  Trinity  Church,  Newport, 
which  followed  the  Wren  model,  King's  Chapel, 
Boston,  which  was  of  hewn  stone,  and  McSparran's 
Narragansett  church,  which  is  described  as  a  very 
dignified  and  elegant  structure  —  the  buildings  of 
this  denomination  in  New  England  were  small  and 
unpretentious  and  constructed  of  wood.  In  the 
South  they  were  more  stately  and  impressive  in 
both  external  appearance  and  internal  adornment. 
St.  Mary's  at  Burlington,  Christ  Church  and  St. 
Peter's  at  Philadelphia,  St.  Anne's  at  Annapolis, 
Bruton  Church  at  Williamsburg,  St.  Paul's  at 
Edenton,  and  St.  Philip's  at  Charleston  were  all 
noble  structures,  and  there  were  many  others  of 
less  repute  which  were  examples  of  good  architec- 
ture. Often  these  churches  were  surrounded  by 


TV- 


170  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

high  brick  walls  and  the  interior  was  fitted  with 
mahogany  seats  and  stone-flagged  aisles.  Con- 
spicuous were  the  altar  and  pulpit,  both  richly 
adorned,  the  canopied  pew  for  the  Governor,  and 
on  the  walls  the  tablets  to  the  memory  of  dis- 
tinguished parishioners.  Not  a  few  of  these  old 
churches  displayed  in  full  view  the  royal  arms  in 
color,  as  may  still  be  seen  in  the  church  of  St. 
James,  Goose  Creek,  near  Charleston.  Bells  were 
on  all  the  churches,  for  the  colonists  had  come  from 
England,  "the  most  bellful  country  in  the  world," 
and  they  and  their  descendants  preserved  to  the  full 
their  love  for  the  sound  of  the  bell,  which  summoned 
them  to  service,  tolled  for  the  dead,  or  marked  at 
many  hours  the  familiar  routine  of  their  daily  life. 
Christ  Church,  Philadelphia,  built  in  1744,  was  dis- 
tinguished by  possessing  a  set  of  chimes. 

Many  a  church  had  its  separate  vestry  and 
sheds;  and  in  large  numbers  of  Southern  parishes 
there  were  chapels  of  ease,  small  and  built  of  wood, 
for  those  whose  habitations  were  so  remote  that 
they  could  not  come  to  the  main  church.  Even  so 
modest  a  structure  as  that  at  Pittsyivania  Court 
House  in  Virginia  —  built  of  wood,  with  a  clap- 
board roof,  a  plank  floor,  a  pulpit  and  desk,  two 
doors,  five  windows,  a  small  table  and  benches  — 


THE  CURE  OF  SOULS  171 

had  its  chapel  of  ease  built  of  round  Jogs,  with  a 
clapboard  roof  and  benches. 

Though  the  New  England  minister  was  given 
a  permanent  call  only  after  he  had  been  tried  as 
a  candidate  for  half  a  year  or  some  such  period, 
the  Anglican  clergyman  was  generally  appointed 
without  regard  to  the  wishes  of  the  parishioners, 
often  by  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the 
Gospel  as  one  of  its  missionaries,  in  Maryland  by 
the  Proprietor,  in  the  royal  colonies  by  the  Gov- 
ernor. Many  of  these  clergymen  were  possessed 
of  superior  culture  and  godly  piety  and  lived  in 
harmony  with  their  vestries  and  people;  but  in  the 
South  and  in  the  West  Indies  to  an  extent  greater 
^han  in  New  England,  men  of  inferior  ability  and 
character  crept  into  the  rectorships  and  proved 
themselves  incompetent  as  spiritual  guides  and 
unworthy  as  spiritual  examples.  But  the  proved 
instances  of  backsliding  south  of  Maryland  are  not 
many  and  one  ought  not  from  isolated  examples  to 
infer  the  spiritual  incompetency  of  the  mass  of 
the  clergy  in  a  colony.  On  the  other  hand  it  is  not 
always  safe  to  take  the  letters  which  the  mission- 
aries wrote  home  to  the  Venerable  Society  as  en- 
tirely reliable  evidence  of  their  character  and  work, 
else  the  account  would  show  no  defects  and  the 


172  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

burden  of  defense  would  rest  wholly  with  the  col- 
onists. John  Urmston  of  Albemarle,  for  example, 
is  known  to  North  Carolinians  as  a  "quarrelsome, 
haughty,  and  notoriously  wicked  clergyman,"  yet 
Governor  Eden  gave  him  a  good  character  and 
the  Society  was  satisfied  that  the  fault  lay  with 
the  country  and  the  vestry.  Clement  Hall  of  St. 
Paul's  Church,  Edenton,  was  found  to  have  offi- 
ciated less  than  twenty-five  Sundays  in  the  year 
1755;  his  salary  was  reduced  accordingly  and  a 
new  arrangement  was  made  whereby  he  was  to  be 
paid  only  for  what  he  did;  yet  Hall  was  looked 
upon  as  one  of  the  most  devoted  and  hard-working 
missionaries  that  the  Society  ever  sent  to  America. 
Fithian  speaks  of  Parson  Gibbern  of  Virginia  as 
"up  three  nights  successively,  drinking  and  play- 
ing at  cards, "  and  he  characterizes  Sunday  there  as 
"a  day  of  pleasure  and  amusement,"  when  "the 
gentlemen  go  to  church  as  a  matter  of  convenience 
and  account  the  church  a  useful  weekly  resort  to 
do  business,"  yet  this  testimony,  as  the  observa- 
tion of  a  graduate  of  the  College  of  New  Jersey  and 
a  not  unprejudiced  witness,  must  be  construed  for 
what  it  is  worth. 

With  the  clergy  in  Maryland  the  case  was  some- 
what different,  and  the  illustrations  of  unspiritual 


THE  CURE  OF  SOULS  173 

conduct  are  too  numerous  to  be  ignored.  Mayna- 
dier  of  Talbot  County  was  called  "a  good  liver'* 
but  a  "horrid  preacher."  and  his  curate  a  "brute 
of  a  parson."  William  Tibbs  of  St.  Paul's  parish, 
Baltimore  County,  was  charged  by  his  vestry  with 
being  a  common  drunkard,  and  Henry  Hall  was  on 
one  occasion  "much  disguised  with  liquor  to  the 
great  scandal"  of  his  "function  and  evil  examples 
to  others."  The  people  of  St.  Stephen's  parish, 
Cecil  County,  complained  that  their  rector  was 
drunk  on  Sundays,  and  Bennet  Allen,  the  notorious 
rector  of  All  Saints,  Frederick  County,  who  after- 
wards fought  a  duel  with  a  brother  of  Daniel  Du- 
laney  in  Hyde  Park,  London,  was  not  only  a  cold- 
blooded seeker  of  benefices  but,  according  to  many 
of  his  parishioners,  was  guilty  of  immorality  also. 
The  letters  of  Governor  Sharpe  disclose  numerous 
other  cases  of  "scandalous  behavior,"  "notorious 
badness,"  "immoral  conduct,"  and  "abandoned 
and  prostituted  life  and  character"  on  the  part  of 
these  unfaithful  pastors;  and  by  witness  of  even 
the  clergy  themselves  the  establishment  of  Mary- 
land deserved  to  be  despised  because  "it  permitted 
clerical  profligacy  to  murder  the  souls  of  men." 
The  situation  reached  its  climax  in  the  years 
following  1734,  when,  by  the  withdrawal  of  the 


174  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

Bishop  of  London's  commissary,  all  discipline  from 
the  higher  authorities  of  the  Anglican  Church  was 
removed  and  the  granting  of  livings  was  left  solely 
in  the  hand  of  the  dissolute  Frederick  Lord  Balti- 
more until  1771,  when,  after  the  death  of  that 
degenerate  proprietor,  the  Assembly  was  able  to 
pass  a  law  subjecting  the  clergy  to  rigid  scru- 
tiny and  to  the  imposition  of  punishment  in  case 
of  guilt. 

On  the  whole  it  is  probably  safe  to  say  that  there 
was  less  religious  seriousness  and  probity  of  con- 
duct among  the  Southern  clergy  and  parishioners 
than  among  the  parsons  and  people  of  New  Eng^ 
land.  One  cannot  easily  imagine  a  New  England 
woman  writing  as  did  Mrs.  Burgwin  of  Cape  Fear: 
"  There  is  a  clergyman  arrived  from  England  with  a 
mission  for  this  parish;  he  came  by  way  of  Charles 
Town  and  has  been  in  Brunswick  these  three  weeks. 
No  compliment  to  his  parishioners;  but  he  is  to 
exhibit  here  next  Sunday.  His  size  is  said  to  be 
surprisingly  long,  I  hope  he  is  good  in  proportion. " 

Sermons  occupied  a  less  conspicuous  place  in  the 
Anglican  service  than  in  those  of  other  denomina- 
tions. The  lay  reader  did  not  preach,  and  the 
sermons  of  the  ordained  clergyman  were  not  often 
more  than  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes  in  length. 


THE  CURE  OF  SOULS  175 

They  seem  to  have  been  carefully  prepared  and 
many  are  spoken  of  in  terms  of  high  approval;  they 
dwelt,  however,  less  upon  the  infirmities  of  the 
flesh  and  more  upon  the  abiding  grace  of  God  and 
the  duties  and  functions  of  the  Church.  They  were 
therefore  rarely  denunciatory  or  threatening  but 
partook  of  the  character  of  learned  essays,  fre- 
quently pedantic  and  overladen  with  classical  allu- 
sions or  quotations  from  the  theological  treatises 
written  by  the  clergy  in  England.  Not  only  were 
sermons  provided  for  by  will,  as  in  the  North,  but 
they  were  also  preached  before  the  House  of  Bur- 
gesses in  Virginia  —  which  unlike  most  legislative 
bodies  in  the  colonies  had  its  chaplain — before 
Masonic  lodges,  and  to  the  militia  on  Muster  Day. 
Thomas  Bray,  commissary  for  Maryland,  had 
many  sermons  printed,  and  the  Reverend  Thomas 
Bacon,  to  whom  Maryland  owes  the  earliest  collec- 
tion of  her  laws,  printed  four  sermons  preached  in 
St.  Peter's  Church,  Talbot  County,  two  to  "black 
slaves"  and  two  for  the  benefit  of  a  charitable 
school  in  the  county.  But  the  number  of  printed 
sermons  in  the  South  was  not  nearly  as  large  as  in 
the  North. 

It  was  not  only  in  matters  of  ritual  and  vest- 
ments that  the  Anglican  churches  differed  from 


176  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

those  of  nearly  all  the  other  denominations.  While 
New  England  was  engaging  in  a  bitter  controversy 
over  the  introduction  of  musical  instruments  into 
its  public  worship  as  well  as  what  was  styled  the 
new  way  of  singing  by  note  instead  of  by  rote,  the 
leading  Anglican  churches  were  adding  richness 
and  beauty  to  their  services  by  the  use  of  organs 
and  the  employment  of  trained  organists  from 
England.  The  first  organ  used  for  religious  pur- 
poses in  the  colonies  was  that  bequeathed  by 
Thomas  Brattle,  of  Boston,  to  the  Congregational 
Church  of  Brattle  Square  in  1713. z  But,  as  that 
society  "did  not  think  it  proper  to  use  the  same  in 
the  public  worship  of  God, "  the  organ,  according 
to  the  terms  of  the  will,  went  to  King's  Chapel, 
where  it  was  thankfully  received.  This  instrument 
after  a  new  organ  had  been  purchased  for  King's 
Chapel  in  1756,  was  transferred  to  Newburyporl 
and  finally  to  Portsmouth,  where  it  is  still  pre- 
served. In  1728  subscriptions  were  invited  for  a 
small  organ  to  be  placed  in  Christ  Church,  Phila- 
delphia, but  probably  the  purchase  was  never 
made,  though  it  is  known  that  both  Christ  Church 

1  The  Reverend  Joseph  Green  of  Salem  was  in  Boston  on  Ma> 
29,  1711,  and  while  there  heard  an  organ  played.  The  instrument 
was  undoubtedly  that  of  Brattle.  Essex  Institute,  Historical  Col- 
lections, vol.  x,  p.  90. 


THE  CURE  OF  SOULS  177 

and  St.  Peter's  in  that  city  had  organs  before  the 
Revolution.  Bishop  Berkeley  gave  an  organ  to 
Trinity  Church,  Newport,  as  early  as  1730,  and  six 
years  later  an  organist  ''who  plays  exceedingly  fine 
thereon  "  arrived  and  entered  upon  his  work.  The 
organ  loft  in  Christ  Church,  Cambridge,  was  a 
very  fine  specimen  of  Georgian  correctness  and 
grace,  superior  in  its  beauty  to  anything  of  its 
kind  in  the  colonies  at  that  time.  The  first  organ 
in  the  South  was  installed  in  1752  in  Bruton  Church, 
Williamsburg,  and  Peter  Pelham,  Jr.,  whose  father 
married  as  his  second  wife  the  mother  of  Copley 
the  painter,  was  the  first  organist.  All  the  organs 
used  in  colonial  times,  however,  were  very  small9 
light  in  tone,  and  deficient  in  pipes0 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  LABOR 

THE  problem  of  obtaining  labor  in  a  frontier  coun 
try  where  agriculture  is  the  main  pursuit  was,  in 
colonial  days  as  at  the  present,  a  difficult  one,  for 
the  employer  could  not  go  into  a  labor  market  and 
hire  what  he  pleased,  since  a  labor  market  did  not 
exist.  For  this  reason  labor  was  always  scarce  in 
America  during  this  early  period,  and  all  sorts  of 
ways  had  to  be  contrived  to  meet  the  demand  for 
"help,"  particularly  in  the  Middle  and  Northern 
colonies.  The  farmers,  who  constituted  the  bulk 
of  the  population,  solved  the  problem  in  part  by 
doing  their  own  work  with  the  assistance  of 
their  wives  and  children  and  such  men  as  could  be 
hired  for  the  busy  seasons  of  planting  and  harvest- 
ing. Such  hired  help  was  usually  obtained  in  the 
neighborhood  and  was  paid  in  many  ways  —  in 
money,  food,  clothing,  return  labor,  and  orders  on 
the  country  store.  It  was  never  very  steady  nor 

178 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  LABOR  179 

yery  reliable.  On  special  occasions,  such  as  rais- 
ing the  framework  of  a  barn,  house,  school,  or  meet- 
inghouse, all  the  neighbors  turned  out  and  helped, 
satisfied  with  the  rum,  cider,  and  eatables  fur- 
nished for  refreshment.  Necessary  household  serv- 
ice was  supplied  either  by  some  woman  of  the 
locality  who  came  in  as  a  favor  and  on  terms  of 
equality  with  the  rest  of  the  family,  or  by  a  young 
girl  bound  out  as  a  servant,  with  the  consent  of  her 
father  or  mother,  until  she  was  of  age. 

Skilled  labor  was  not  often  called  for,  except 
in  the  towns  or  for  shipbuilding,  as  the  farmers 
were  their  own  shoemakers,  coopers,  carpenters, 
tanners,  and  ironworkers,  and  even  at  times 
their  own  surveyors,  architects,  lawyers,  doctors, 
and  surgeons.  Nearly  every  one  was  a  jack  at 
many  trades,  for  just  as  the  minister  physicked  and 
bled  as  well  as  preached,  so  the  farmer  could  on 
occasion  run  a  store,  build  a  house,  make  a  boat, 
and  fashion  his  own  farming  utensils. '  His  house 

1  Joshua  Hempstead  of  New  London,  for  example,  was  not  only  a 
farmer  but  at  one  time  or  another,  from  1711  to  1758,  a  housebuilder, 
carpenter,  and  cabinetmaker,  shipwright,  cobbler,  maker  of  coffins, 
and  engraver  of  tombstones,  a  town  official  holding  the  offices  of 
selectman,  treasurer,  assessor,  and  surveyor  of  highways;  a  colony 
official,  serving  as  deputy  sheriff  and  coroner,  many  times  deputy  to 
the  General  Court,  justice  of  the  peace,  and  so  performing  frequent 
marriages,  and  judge  of  probate.  He  was  also  clerk  of  the  ecclesiastical 


180  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

was  a  manufactory  as  well  as  a  residence,  and  his 
barn  a  workshop  as  well  as  a  place  for  hay  and  live- 
stock. Of  course  as  the  eighteenth  century  wore  on 
and  men  of  the  Huguenot  type,  with  their  love  for 
beauty  and  good  craftsmanship,  came  into  the  coun- 
try, and  as  social  life  became  more  elaborate  and 
luxurious,  industrial  activities  were  organized  to 
meet  the  growing  demands  of  a  prosperous  popula- 
tion. Artisans  became  more  skilled  and  individual, 
and  a  few  of  them  attained  sufficient  importance 
to  occupy  places  of  some  dignity  in  the  community 
and  to  produce  works  of  such  merit  as  to  win  re- 
pute in  the  history  of  arts  and  crafts  in  America. 
But  these  cases  are  exceptional ;  labor  as  a  rule  was 
not  highly  specialized,  and  the  artisan  usually  add- 
ed to  his  income  in  other  ways.  We  find  among  the 
trades  farriers,  blacksmiths,  whitesmiths,  joiners, 
cabinetmakers,  tailors,  shipwrights,  millwrights, 
gunsmiths,  silversmiths,  jewelers,  watch  and  clock 
makers,  and  wig  and  peruke  makers.  For  such 
highly  skilled  industries  as  snuff  making,  sugar 
refining,  and  glass  blowing  labor  was  imported 


society,  lieutenant  and  later  captain  of  the  train  band,  and  sur- 
veyor of  lands.  He  did  a  great  deal  of  legal  business,  drawing  deeds, 
leases,  wills,  and  other  similar  documents,  and  was  general  handy  man 
for  his  community. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  LABOR  181 

from  England,  but  not  on  any  large  scale  until  just 
before  the  Revolution,  when  agreements  not  to 
import  English  merchandise  stimulated  domestic 
manufacture. 

Throughout  the  colonies  the  people  as  a  whole 
depended  not  on  hired  labor  but  on  bound  labor  — 
the  indentured  servant,  the  apprentice,  the  convict, 
and  the  slave  —  and  everywhere  these  forms  of 
labor  appear  in  varying  degrees. 

The  covenanted  or  indentured  servant  was  one 
who  engaged  himself  for  a  certain  number  of  years 
in  order  to  work  off  a  debt.  In  itself  such  bond- 
service involved  no  special  disgrace,  any  more  than 
did  going  to  prison  for  debt  seriously  discredit 
many  of  the  fairly  distinguished  men  who  at  one 
time  or  another  were  residents  of  the  old  Fleet 
Prison  in  London  or  those  men  of  less  repute  who 
for  the  same  reason  found  themselves  in  colonial 
jails.  The  reader  must  dismiss  the  notion  that  the 
position  of  an  indentured  servant  necessarily  in- 
volved degradation  or  that  the  term  "sold"  used 
in  that  connection  referred  to  anything  else  than 
the  selling  of  the  time  during  which  the  individ- 
ual was  bound. x  It  was  not  uncommon  for  one 

1  The  writer  has  seen  a  manuscript  diary  of  a  German  servant 
who  came  to  America  by  way  of  Rotterdam,  in  which  the  words 


182  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

imprisoned  for  debt  in  the  colonies  to  advertise  his 
services  to  any  one  who  would  buy  him  out;  and 
sometimes  this  form  of  service  was  used  to  pay  a 
gambling  debt. 

But  the  most  frequent  form  of  indenture  was 
that  which  bound  the  emigrant  from  England  or 
the  Continent  to  the  captain  of  the  ship  on  which 
he  sailed.  The  captain  paid  the  passage  of  the 
emigrant,  furnished  him  with  all  necessary  clothes, 
meat,  drink,  and  lodging  during  the  voyage,  and 
then  sold  his  time  and  labor  on  the  ship's  arrival  in 
port.  People  went  to  the  colonies  in  this  way  by 
the  thousands  and  were  to  be  found  in  every  colony 
including  the  West  Indies,  although  Georgia  seems 
to  have  had  on  the  whole  very  few.  They  were 
of  all  nationalities,  but  Germans,  Swiss,  English, 
Scotch,  Irish,  and  Welsh  predominated,  with  an 
occasional  Frenchman.  Probably  the  largest  num- 
ber were  Germans,  for  the  majority  of  those  who 
came  over  were  extremely  poor  and  had  to  sell  their 
time  and  that  of  their  children  to  pay  for  their 
passage.  Such  methods  continued  for  many  years 
even  after  the  Revolution. 

"sell"  and  "sold,"  though  used  merely  in  the  sense  of  binding  to 
service,  have  been  carefully  erased  by  an  outraged  and  uninformed 
descendant  and  the  seemingly  less  invidious  terms  "  hire "  and 
"hired  "  inserted  in  their  place. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  LABOR  183 

German  servants  were  shipped  from  Rotterdam, 
and  British  from  Gravesend  and  other  ports.  To 
prevent  enticing  or  kidnapping,  all  servants  were 
registered  before  sailing  and  sometimes,  as  at  Bris- 
tol, where  the  mayor  and  aldermen  interfered,  the 
ship  was  searched  before  sailing,  the  passengers 
were  ordered  ashore,  and  all  who  wished  were  re- 
leased. When  the  vessel  reached  its  American  des- 
tination, word  was  spread  or  an  advertisement  was 
inserted  in  the  newspapers  saying  that  the  inden- 
tures of  a  certain  number  of  servants,  men,  women, 
and  children,  were  available,  and  then  the  bargain- 
ing went  on  either  aboard  the  ship  or  on  shore  at 
some  convenient  point  to  which  the  servants  were 
taken.  Such  selling  of  indentures  took  place  at  all 
ports  of  entry  from  Boston  to  Charleston  and  gave 
rise  to  a  brutal  class  of  men  popularly  known  as 
"soul  drivers,"  who  "made  it  their  business  to  go 
on  board  all  ships  who  have  in  either  servants  or 
convicts  and  buy  sometimes  the  whole  and  some- 
times a  parcel  of  them  as  they  can  agree,  and  then 
they  drive  them  through  the  country  like  a  parcel 
of  sheep,  until  they  can  sell  them  to  advantage."1 

The  men  thus  disposed  of  for  four  to  seven 
years  ranged  from  sixteen  to  forty  years  of  age 

1  Harrower's  "  Diary,"  American  Historical  Review,  vol.  vi,  p.  77. 


184  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

and  brought  from  sixteen  to  twenty-four  pounds. 
Children  began  the  period  of  their  service  some- 
times at  the  early  age  of  ten.  The  abilities  of  these 
imported  servants  varied  greatly :  many  were  labor- 
ers, others  were  artisans  and  tradesmen,  and  a 
few  were  trained  workmen  possessed  of  exceptional 
skill.  Among  them  were  dyers,  tailors,  upholster- 
ers, weavers,  joiners,  carpenters,  cabinetmakers, 
barbers,  shoemakers,  peruke  makers,  whitesmiths, 
braziers,  blacksmiths,  coachmen,  gentlemen's  serv- 
ants, gardeners,  bakers,  house  waiters,  school- 
teachers, and  even  doctors  and  surgeons.  Many 
could  fence  or  could  perform  on  some  musical 
instrument,  and  one  is  described  as  professing 
"dancing,  fencing,  writing,  arithmetic,  drawing  of 
pictures,  and  playing  of  legerdemain  or  slight  of 
hand  tricks."  Benjamin  Harrower,  who  served  in 
America  as  clerk,  bookkeeper,  and  schoolmaster, 
was  an  indentured  servant,  and  so  was  Henry 
Callister,  a  Manxman,  who  was  an  assistant  to 
the  merchant  Robert  Morris,  of  Oxford,  Maryland, 
and  whose  account  books,  preserved  in  the  Mary- 
land Diocesan  Library,  are  today  such  a  valuable 
source  of  information.  Many  of  these  servants  were 
well-born  but  for  offenses  or  for  other  reasons  had 
to  leave  England :  Jean  Campbell,  for  instance,  was 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  LABOR  185 

Delated  "to  the  very  best  families  in  Ayrshire": 
William  Gardner  was  the  son  of  a  Shropshire 
gentleman;  John  Keef  claimed  to  have  been  an 
officer  in  the  British  Arrny;  William  Stevens  and 
Thomas  Lloyd  of  Virginia,  who  wrote  home  with 
regret  of  their  former  "follies,"  were  evidently  of 
good  families;  while  the  "light  finger'd  damsel" 
who  ransacked  the  baggage  of  William  Byrd,  2d> 
was  a  baronet's  daughter  sent  to  America  as  an 
incorrigible.  Doubtless  there  were  many  such* 
though  the  total  number  could  hardly  have  been 
large  enough  to  affect  the  general  statement  that 
the  indentured  servant  was  of  humble  origin. 

Many  of  these  servants  came  over  with  the  ex- 
pectation that  relatives  or  friends  would  redeem 
them,  and  in  cases  where  these  hopes  were  not 
realized  the  captain  would  advertise  that  unless 
some  one  appeared  to  pay  the  money  the  men  or 
women  would  be  sold.  The  indenture  was  looked 
upon  as  property  which  could  even  be  bought  by 
more  than  one  purchaser,  each  of  whom  had  a  pro- 
portionate right  to  the  servant's  time,  which  could 
be  sold,  leased,  and  bequeathed  by  will,  and  which 
In  the  case  of  the  sale  or  lease  of  a  farm  or  planta- 
tion could  be  transferred  to  the  buyer  or  tenant. 
Sometimes  a  colony,  through  the  Governor,  would 


186  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

buy  the  time  of  white  servants  for  service  in  the 
militia  or  for  work  on  the  defenses  of  the  province. 
It  not  infrequently  happened  that  a  master  allowed 
a  servant  to  exercise  his  trade  at  large  through  the 
colony,  as  in  the  case  of  Stephen  Tinoe,  a  servant 
of  one  of  the  Virginia  planters,  who  had  dancing 
schools  at  Hampton,  Yorktown,  and  Williamsburg, 
but  who  handed  over  to  his  master  all  the  money 
which  he  received  for  his  instruction.  When  the 
time  named  in  the  indenture  expired,  the  servant 
became  free,  and  the  master  was  obliged  to  furnish 
him  with  a  suit  of  clothes  and  to  pay  certain  "free- 
dom dues. "  There  are  many  instances  of  servants 
bringing  suit  in  the  courts  and  contending  that 
their  masters  were  keeping  them  beyond  their  law- 
ful time  or  had  failed  to  give  them  their  perquisites. 
Inevitably  under  such  a  system  the  lot  of  the 
servants  became  very  hard  as  the  years  passed  and 
their  status  for  the  period  of  their  service  grew  to 
be  little  better  than  that  of  slaves.  While  in  the 
North  they  were  usually  treated  with  kindness 
and  their  position  was  not  as  irksome  as  it  was  in 
th<*  South,  yet  in  Maryland,  Virginia,  and  the  West 
Indies  they  suffered  much  abuse  and  degradation. 
William  Randal  of  Maryland  said  in  1755  that  the 
colony  was  a  hard  one  for  servants  to  live  in,  and 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  LABOR  187 

Elizabeth  Sprigs  wrote  of  "toiling  day  and  night, 
and  then  tied  up  and  whipped  to  that  degree  you 
would  not  beat  an  animal,  scarce  anything  but  In- 
dian corn  and  salt  to  eat  and  that  even  begrudged." 
Governor  Mathew  of  the  Leeward  Islands  spoke 
of  them  as  "poorly  cladd,  hard  fedd,  a  worse  state 
than  a  common  soldier."  As  early  as  1716  these 
indentured  servants  were  called  runaway  thieves, 
disorderly  persons,  renegadoes,  a  loose  sort  of  peo- 
ple, cheap  and  useless,  and  were  said  to  grow  more 
and  more  lazy,  indolent,  and  impudent.  Even 
in  the  North  the  later  arrivals  were  deemed 
greatly  inferior  to  those  of  the  earlier  years  — 
a  falling  off  which  one  observer  ascribed  to  the 
want  of  good  land  wherewith  to  attract  the  better 
sort  who  desired  to  become  farmers  after  serving 
their  time. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  indentured  servants 
in  general  made  very  poor  laborers.  The  Irish 
Roman  Catholics  especially  were  feared  and  dis- 
liked and  were  not  bought  if  others  could  be 
obtained.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  inden- 
tured servants  were  continually  running  away. 
The  newspapers,  North  and  South,  were  full  of 
advertisements  for  the  fugitives,  describing  their 
features,  their  clothes,  and  whatever  they  carried. 


188  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

for  many  of  them  made  off  with  anything  they 
could  lay  their  hands  on  —  horses,  guns,  household 
goods,  clothing,  and  money.  All  sorts  of  laws  were 
made,  particularly  in  the  South,  to  control  these 
indentured  servants.  Should  they  absent  them- 
selves from  service  without  permission,  they  had  to 
remain  so  many  days  longer  in  bondage;  should 
they  run  away,  they  were  liable  to  be  whipped  and 
to  have  their  time  extended;  should  a  female  serv- 
ant have  a  child,  she  was  punished  and  the  master 
of  the  child's  father  was  required  to  pay  for  the 
time  lost  by  the  mother.  In  Virginia  a  freed  serv- 
ant was  obliged  to  have  a  ticket  or  certificate  of 
freedom  and  if  found  without  one  was  liable  to 
arrest  and  imprisonment. 

In  addition  to  indentured  servants  there  were 
also  apprentices,  usually  children  bound  out  to  a 
master,  until  they  were  of  age,  by  their  poor  parents 
to  serve  at  some  lawful  employment  or  to  learn  a 
trade.  There  was  nothing,  however,  to  hinder  a 
servant,  or  even  a  negro,  from  being  bound  out  as 
an  apprentice.  Colonial  apprenticeship,  except  in 
its  educational  features,  was  simply  the  system 
of  England  transferred  to  America,  and  the  early 
indentures,  of  which  there  are  copies  extant  for 
nearly  all  the  colonies,  were  almost  word  for  word 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  LABOR  189 

die  same  as  those  of  the  mother  country.  Such 
apprenticeship  was  more  than  merely  a  form  of 
labor;  it  was  also  a  method  of  educating  the  poor 
and  of  implanting  good  morals.  The  apprentice 
on  the  one  hand  was  bound  to  serve  his  master 
faithfully  and  tc  avoid  taverns,  alehouses,  play- 
houses, unlawful  games,  and  illicit  amours;  and 
the  master  on  the  other  hand  was  obliged  to  pro- 
vide his  apprentice  with  food  and  lodging  and  to 
teach  him  to  read  and  write  and  in  the  case  of  a 
doctor  "to  dismiss  said  apprentice  with  good  skill 
in  arithmetic,  Latin  and  also  in  the  Greek  through 
the  Greek  Grammer.  "*  A  girl  apprentice  was  to 
be  taught  "housewifery,  knitting,  spinning,  sew- 
ing, and  such  like  exercises  as  may  be  fitting  and 
becoming  her  sex. "  At  the  end  of  the  apprentice- 
ship, the  master  was  expected  to  give  his  appren- 
tice two  suits  of  clothes  as  a  perquisite;  but  in  the 
case  of  one  girl  he  gave  a  cowr,  and  of  another  "two 
suits  of  wearing  apparel,  one  for  Sunday  and  one 
for  weekly  labor,  with  two  pairs  of  hose  and  shoes, 

1  Working  one's  passage  to  the  medical  profession  was  the  only 
way  in  which  a  medical  education  could  be  obtained  in  America  at 
this  time.  The  first  hospital,  at  Philadelphia,  was  not  founded  until 
1751,  and  the  first  medical  school,  also  at  Philadelphia,  not  until 
1765,  and  admission  to  that  required  a  year's  apprenticeship  in  a 
doctor's  office. 


190  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

two  hoods  or  hats,  or  such  headgear  as  may  be 
comely  and  convenient,  with  all  necessary  linen. '* 
Sometimes  an  apprentice  was  scarcely  to  be  dis- 
tinguished from  an  indentured  servant,  as  for  in 
stance  when  a  minor  bound  himself  to  serve  until  a 
debt  was  paid  off.  Apprenticeship  proved  a  useful 
sort  of  service  in  the  colonies,  for,  though  it  was  at 
times  much  abused  and  both  masters  and  appren- 
tices complained  that  the  contracts  were  not  car- 
ried out,  it  trained  good  workmen  and  satisfied  a 
real  need. 

Though  originally  in  quite  a  different  position* 
the  transported  prisoner  was  in  much  the  same 
condition  as  the  servant  and  apprentice,  for  he 
too  was  a  laborer  bound  to  service  without  pay  for 
a  given  number  of  years.  Persons  transported  for 
religious  or  political  reasons  were  few  in  number  as 
compared  with  the  convicts  sent  from  Newgate  and 
other  British  prisons  and  known  as  "transports," 
"seven  year  passengers,"  and  "King's  prisoners.'51 
Not  less  than  forty  thousand  of  these  convicts  were 
sent  between  the  years  1717  and  1775  to  the  colo- 
nies, chiefly  to  Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  Virginia, 
and  the  West  Indies.  Some  were  transported  for 
seven  years,  some  for  fourteen,  and  some  for  life, 
and  though  the  colonies  protested  and  those  most 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  LABOR  191 

nearly  concerned  passed  laws  against  the  practice, 
the  need  of  labor  was  so  great  that  convicts  con- 
tinued to  be  received  and  were  sometimes  even 
smuggled  across  the  borders  of  the  colony.  Deter- 
mined to  get  rid  of  an  undesirable  social  element, 
England  hoped  in  this  way  to  lessen  the  number  of 
executions  at  home  and  to  turn  to  good  account  the 
skill  and  physical  strength  of  able-bodied  men  and 
women.  When  a  certain  Englishman  argued  in 
favor  of  transporting  felons  for  the  purpose  of  re- 
forming them,  Franklin  is  said  to  have  retaliated 
by  suggesting  the  reformation  of  American  rattle- 
snakes by  sending  them  to  England. 

As  convicts  were  often  transported  for  very 
slight  offenses,  it  is  stated  that,  at  times  when  con- 
ditions were  very  bad  in  the  mother  country,  the 
starving  poor,  rather  than  continue  to  suffer,  would 
commit  trifling  thefts  for  which  transportation 
was  the  penalty.  Thus  though  there  were  many 
who  were  confirmed  criminals,  those  who  had  been 
merely  petty  offenders  were  distinctly  advanta- 
geous to  the  colonies  as  artisans  and  laborers.  Men 
and  women  alike  were  transported  either  in  regular 
merchant  ships  or  in  vessels  specially  provided  by 
contractors,  who  were  paid  by  the  Government 
three  to  five  pounds  a  head.  Besides  the 


192  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

ordinary  passengers,  indentured  servants  and  con- 
victs were  frequently  on  the  same  ship  and  would  be 
advertised  for  sale  at  the  same  time.  Before  the 
voyage  was  over,  however,  exciting  things  some- 
times happened:  one  case  is  on  record  where  the 
convicts  mutinied,  killed  captain  and  ship's  com- 
pany, and  sailed  away  on  a  piratical  cruise;  and 
another  mutiny  was  foiled  by  shooting  the  ring- 
leaders. On  arrival  at  port  the  convict's  time  was 
sold  exactly  as  was  that  of  the  indentured  servant, 
and  on  the  plantations  both  worked  side  by  side 
with  the  negro.  At  the  expiration  of  his  term  of 
service  the  convict  was  free  to  acquire  land  or  to 
work  as  a  hired  laborer.  As  a  rule,  however,  he 
preferred  to  return  to  England,  where  he  frequently 
fell  again  into  evil  ways  and  was  transported  a 
second  time  to  America. 

The  story  is  told  of  a  barrister  who  had  been 
caught  stealing  books  from  college  libraries  in  Cam- 
bridge and  had  been  sentenced  to  transportation 
without  the  privilege  of  returning  to  England. 
Though  it  was  customary  for  the  commoner  sort  of 
prisoners  to  be  conducted  on  foot,  with  a  sufficient 
guard,  from  Newgate  to  Blackfriars  Stairs,  whence 
they  were  carried  in  a  closed  lighter  to  the  ship  at 
Blackwall,  this  barrister  and  four  other  prisoners, 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  LABOR  193 

including  an  attorney,  a  butcher,  and  a  member 
of  a  noble  family,  were  allowed  to  ride  in  hackney 
coaches  with  their  keepers.  Because  the  five  were 
able  to  pay  for  their  passage,  they  were  treated  on 
board  ship  with  marks  of  respect  and  distinction. 
While  the  felons  of  inferior  note  were  immediately 
put  under  hatches  and  confined  in  the  hold  of  the 
ship,  the  five  privileged  malefactors  were  conveyed 
to  the  cabin  which  they  were  to  have  for  the  dura- 
tion of  the  voyage.  "It  is  supposed,"  says  the 
narrator,  "that  as  soon  as  they  land  they  will  be 
set  at  liberty,  instead  of  being  sold  as  felons  usually 
are,  and  that  thus  a  criminal  who  has  money  may 
blunt  the  edge  of  justice  and  make  that  his  happi- 
ness which  the  law  designs  as  his  punishment." 

Though  many  convicts  became  useful  laborers 
and  farmers,  others  were  a  continual  nuisance  and 
even  danger  to  the  colonists.  They  ran  away,  com- 
mitted robberies,  —  "poor  unhappy  wretches  who 
cannot  leave  off  their  old  trade, "  they  are  called  — 
turned  highwaymen,  set  houses  on  fire,  engaged  in 
counterfeiting,  and  were  guilty  even  of  murder. 
In  the  West  Indies  they  corrupted  the  negroes  and 
lured  them  off  on  piratical  expeditions.  Governor 
Hunter  wrote  from  Jamaica  in  1731  that  people 
who  had  been  accustomed  to  sleep  with  their  doors 


194  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

open  were  obliged,  since  the  arrival  of  the  convicts, 
"to  keep  watches  on  their  counting  and  store 
houses, "  since  several  robberies  had  recently  been 
committed.  Many  were  caught  and  imprisoned; 
others,  when  convicted  a  second  time,  were  hanged. 
The  convicts  were  an  ill-featured  crew,  often  pock- 
marked, sly  and  cunning,  and  garbed  in  all  sorts  of 
nondescript  clothing,  and  whether  at  home  or  at 
large  their  evil  propensities  and  uncleanly  habits, 
together  with  their  proneness  to  contagious  dis- 
eases and  jail  fever,  made  them  a  menace  to  mas- 
ters and  communities  alike. 

Negroes,  the  mainstay  of  labor  on  the  planta- 
tions of  the  South  and  the  West  Indies,  differed 
from  indentured  servants  in  that  their  bodies  as 
well  as  their  time  and  labor  were  bartered  and  sold. 
Though  the  servant's  loss  of  liberty  was  temporary, 
that  of  the  negro  was  perpetual.  Yet  in  the  seven- 
teenth century  negroes  were  viewed  in  the  light  of 
servants  rather  than  of  slaves,  and  it  is  noteworthy 
how  rarely  the  word  " slave"  was  used  in  common 
parlance  at  that  early  period.  But  by  the  eight- 
eenth century  perpetual  servitude  had  become 
the  rule.  Indeed,  so  essential  did  it  become  that 
before  long  few  indentured  servants  were  to  be 
found  on  the  tobacco  plantations  and  rice  fields  of 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  LABOR  195 

the  South,  for  their  places  had  been  everywhere 
taken  by  the  negroes.  Though  in  Maryland,  Vir- 
ginia, and  North  Carolina  the  whites  outnumbered 
the  blacks  two  or  three  times  to  one,  in  South  Caro- 
lina and  the  West  Indies  the  reverse  was  the  case, 
for  there  the  blacks  outnumbered  the  whites  ten 
and  twenty  fold. 

The  negroes  came  from  the  western  coast  of 
Africa,  north  as  far  as  Senegambia  and  south  as 
far  as  Angola,  where  lay  the  factories  and  "  castles  " 
of  those  engaged  in  the  trade.  For  Great  Britain 
the  business  of  buying  negroes  was  in  the  hands  of 
the  Royal  African  Company  until  1698,  when  the 
monopoly  was  broken  and  the  trade  was  thrown 
open  to  private  firms  and  individual  dealers  who 
controlled  the  bulk  of  the  business  in  the  eight- 
eenth century.  The  independent  traders  were  both 
British  and  colonial  —  the  former  from  London, 
Bristol,  and  Liverpool,  the  latter  from  Boston, 
Newport,  New  York,  Charleston,  and  other  sea- 
ports —  who  brought  their  negroes  direct  from 
Africa  or  bought  them  in  the  West  Indies  for  sale 
in  the  colonies.  The  voyage  of  a  slaver  was  a  dan- 
gerous and  gruesome  experience,  and  the  "Guinea 
captains, "  as  they  were  called,  were  often  trucu- 
lent, inhuman  characters. 


196  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

The  negroes  were  obtained  either  at  the  African 
Company's  factories  or  from  the  native  chiefs 
and  African  slave  drivers  in  exchange  for  all  sorts 
of  cloths,  stuffs,  hardware,  ammunition,  and  for  rum 
of  inferior  quality  made  especially  for  this  trade. 
The  slaves  were  taken  to  America  chained  between 
decks  during  the  passage,  a  treatment  so  brutal 
that  many  died  or  committed  suicide  on  the  voyage. 
In  such  close  and  unhealthy  confinement  epidemics 
were  frequent,  and  diseases  were  so  often  commu- 
nicated to  the  white  sailors  that  the  mortality 
on  board  was  usually  high  —  ordinarily  from  five 
to  ten  per  cent  and  sometimes  running  to  more 
than  thirty  under  particularly  unfavorable  circum- 
stances. Many  cases  are  recorded  of  uprisings  in 
which  whole  crews  were  murdered  and  captains 
and  mates  tortured  and  mutilated  in  revenge  for 
their  cruelty. 

Male  negroes  from  fifteen  to  twenty  years  of  age 
were  most  in  demand,  because  women  were  physi- 
cally less  capable  and  the  older  negroes  were  more 
inclined  to  moroseness  and  suicide.  Those  from 
the  Gold  Coast,  Windward  Coast,  and  Angola  were 
as  a  rule  preferred,  because  they  were  healthier, 
bigger,  and  more  tractable;  those  from  Gambia 
were  generally  rated  inferior,  though  opinions 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  LABOR  197 

differed  on  this  point;  and  those  from  Calabar,  if 
over  seventeen,  were  not  desired  because  they  were 
given  to  melancholy  and  self-destruction.  All  were 
brought  over  naked,  but  they  often  received  cloth- 
ing before  their  arrival,  partly  for  decency's  sake 
and  partly  for  protection  against  the  cold  and  the 
water  coming  through  the  decks.  Some  prejudice 
existed  against  negroes  from  the  West  Indies  who 
spoke  English,  because  they  were  believed  to  be 
great  rogues  and  less  amenable  to  discipline  than 
were  the  American-born,  who  always  brought 
higher  prices  because  they  could  stand  the  cli- 
mate and  were  used  to  plantation  work. 

In  the  North,  at  Boston  and  Newport,  the  ne- 
groes were  sold  directly  to  the  purchaser  by  the 
captain  or  owner,  or  else  were  disposed  of  through 
the  medium  of  advertisements  and  intelligence 
offices.  But  in  Virginia  and  South  Carolina  they 
were  more  frequently  sold  in  batches  to  the  local 
merchants,  by  whom  they  were  bartered  singly  or 
in  groups  of  two  or  three,  to  the  planters  for  to- 
bacco, rice,  indigo,  or  cash.  They  were  frequently 
taken  to  fairs,  which  were  a  favorite  place  for  sell- 
ing slaves.  Probably  the  most  active  market  in 
the  colonies,  however,  was  at  Charleston,  where 
many  firms  were  engaged  in  the  Guinea  business, 


198  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

either  on  their  own  account  or  as  agents  for  British 
houses.  Henry  Laurens, a  "negro  merchant "  from 
1748  to  1762,  has  given  Li  his  letters  an  admirable 
account  of  the  way  in  which  negroes  were  handled 
in  that  city.  Planters  sometimes  came  seventy 
miles  to  purchase  slaves  and  "were  so  mad  after 
them  that  some  of  them  went  to  loggerheads  and 
bid  so  upon  each  other  that  some  very  fine  men  sold 
for  £300"  in  colonial  currency,  or  £40  sterling. 
"Some  of  the  buyers  went  to  collaring  each  other 
and  would  have  come  to  blows,"  and,  adds  Lau- 
rens, by  the  number  of  purchasers  he  saw  in  town 
he  judged  that  a  thousand  slaves  would  not  have 
supplied  their  wants.  Every  effort  was  made  to 
prevent  the  spread  of  disease,  and  vessels  with 
plagues  on  board  were  often  quarantined  or  the 
negroes  removed  to  pens  to  guard  against  conta- 
gion. In  spite  of  this,  however,  many  negroes 
arrived  "disordered"  or  "meager,"  with  sore  eyes 
and  other  ailments.  Those  that  were  healthy  and 
not  too  small  were  kept  in  pens  or  yards  until 
brought  to  the  auction  block.  The  amount  for 
which  they  were  sold  depended  on  the  state  of  the 
crops  and  the  price  of  rice  and  indigo. 

As  soon  as   the  negroes  were  purchased,  they 
were  taken  to  the  plantation  and  put  to  work  in  the 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  LABOR  199 

tobacco,  rice,  and  indigo  fields  or  were  employed 
about  the  house  at  tasks  of  a  more  domestic  char- 
acter. In  the  North  they  served  as  household  serv- 
ants or  on  the  farm,  clearing  the  woods  and  cul- 
tivating lands.  Some  were  coachmen,  boatmen, 
sailors,  and  porters  in  shops  and  warehouses. 
As  many  of  them  became  in  time  skillful  shoe- 
makers, coopers,  masons,  and  blacksmiths,  they 
not  only  did  the  heavier  work  incident  to  these 
crafts  but  at  the  same  time  became  something  of 
a  financial  asset  to  their  owners,  who  hired  them 
out  to  other  planters,  contractors,  and  even  the 
Government,  and  then  pocketed  the  wages  them- 
selves. In  Newport  hired  slaves  aided  in  building 
the  Jewish  synagogue;  in  Williamsburg  the  slaves 
of  Thomas  Jones  made  shoes  for  people  of  the 
town;  and  in  Charleston  large  numbers  of  slaves 
were  employed  to  work  on  the  fortifications.  They 
had  their  own  quarters  to  live  in,  both  on  the  plan- 
tations and  in  certain  sections  of  the  towns,  and 
even  the  domestic  servants,  commonly  in  the  South 
and  occasionally  in  the  North,  had  shanties  of  their 
own.  The  clothing  which  the  slaves  wore  was 
always  coarse  in  texture;  their  bedding  was  scanty, 
merely  coarse  covers  or  cheap  blankets  bought 
specially  for  the  purpose;  and  their  food  consisted 


200  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

of  corn  bread,  ash  cake,  rice,  beans,  bacon,  beef 
on  rare  occasions,  butter,  and  milk. 

The  slaves  in  domestic  service  were  well  cared 
for,  and  Laurens  once  said  that  his  negroes  were 
"as  happy  as  slavery  will  admit  of;  none  run  away 
and  the  greatest  punishment  to  a  defaulter  is  to 
sell  him. "  Van  Cortlandt  of  New  York  offered  for 
sale  a  valuable  negro  woman  who  had  been  in  his 
family  a  number  of  years  and  could  do  all  kinds  of 
work.  "I  would  not  take  two  hundred  pounds  for 
her, "  he  wrote,  "if  it  were  not  for  her  impudence; 
but  she  is  so  intorabel  saucy  to  her  mistress." 
Thomas  Jones  once  wrote  to  his  wife:  "Our  fami- 
ly is  in  as  much  disorder  with  our  servants  as  when 
you  left  it  and  worse,  Venus  being  so  incorigable  in 
her  bad  habits  and  her  natural  ill  disposition  that 
there  will  be  no  keeping  her" ;  and  later  he  added: 
"There  is  no  dependence  on  negroes  without  some- 
body continually  to  follow  them.  "  Dr.  McSparran 
records  in  his  diary  how  he  was  obliged  to  whip  his 
negroes  and  how  even  his  wife,  "my  poor  passion- 
ate dear, "  gave  them  a  lash  or  two.  On  the  other 
hand  in  many  instances  the  devotion  of  negro  serv- 
ants to  their  masters,  mistresses,  and  the  children  of 
the  family  is  well  attested,  and  many  were  freed  for 
their  continued  good  service  and  faithful  loyalty* 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  LABOR  20i 

They  had  their  pleasures,  were  fond  of  dancing  and 
music,  attained  considerable  skill  as  dancing  mas- 
ters and  players  on  the  fiddle  and  French  horn,  and 
in  South  Carolina  were  even  allowed  to  carry  guns 
and  hunt  provided  their  masters  obtained  tickets 
or  licenses  for  them. 

The  field  hands  suffered  from  their  condition 
more  than  did  those  who  served  on  the  place  or  in 
the  house.  The  work  which  they  had  to  do  was 
heavier  and  more  exhausting,  and  the  treatment 
which  they  received  was  far  less  kindly  and  con- 
siderate. For  the  cruelty  to  negroes  the  overseers 
were  largely  responsible,  though  the  planters  them- 
selves were  not  exempt  from  blame.  In  the  case  of 
a  master  murdered  by  his  slaves,  the  opinion  was 
widely  expressed  that,  as  he  had  shown  no  mercy 
to  them,  he  could  expect  none  himself.  Whipping 
to  death  was  a  not  uncommon  punishment,  and  in 
one  case  an  overseer  and  his  assistant  in  Virginia 
y/ere  hanged  for  this  offense  as  murder.  A  South 
Carolinian  who  killed  a  negro  "in  a  sudden  heat 
of  passion"  was  fined  fifty  pounds,  and  Quincy 
reports  that  in  the  same  colony,  though  to  steal 
a  negro  was  punishable  by  death,  to  kill  him  was 
only  finable,  no  matter  how  wanton  the  act  might 
be.  Many  illustrations  could  be  given  of  cruel 


202  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

treatment  —  such  as  suspension  over  a  sharpened 
peg  in  the  floor  as  a  means  of  extracting  a  secret,  or 
scraping  the  back  with  a  currycomb  and  rubbing 
salt  into  the  wounds,  a  procedure  known  as  "pick- 
ling" —  but  the  list  is  too  long  and  harrowing.  It 
is  recorded  that  a  negro  who  took  part  in  the  New 
York  uprising  of  1712  was  hanged  alive  in  chains. 
A  negro  who  committed  arson  or  who  killed 
another  negro  was  ordinarily  hanged  and  quar- 
tered. One  who  murdered  his  master  or  mis- 
tress was  burned  at  the  stake,  for  such  murder 
was  construed  as  petty  treason.  In  Massachu- 
setts, New  York,  New  Jersey,  Virginia,  North  and 
South  Carolina,  and  the  West  Indies  negroes  were 
burned  alive  for  various  crimes.  In  one  South 
Carolina  case,  the  negro  who  was  burned  had 
set  fire  to  the  town  on  a  windy  night.  Negroes 
were  castrated  for  rape;  one  for  attempted  as- 
sault on  a  white  child  was  whipped  around  the 
town  at  a  cart's  tail;  and  another  for  a  lesser  crime 
was  sentenced  to  be  "whipped  and  pickled  around 
Charles  Town  square. " 

Negroes  were  almost  as  frequent  runaways  as 
were  the  convicts  and  indentured  servants.  If 
they  resisted  when  caught,  they  (in  South  Caro- 
lina at  least)  might  be  shot  about  the  breech  with 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  LABOR  203 

small  or  swan  shot.  They  were  put  in  jail  with 
felons  and  debtors  or  in  the  workhouse,  where  they 
were  "corrected"  at  fifteen  shillings  a  week  and 
returned  to  their  masters.  They  frequently  fled 
to  the  back  county  or  attempted  to  escape  to  sea 
by  passing  themselves  off  to  the  captains  of  ships 
as  free  negroes. 

Miscegenation  was  probably  very  common.  In- 
stances of  white  women  giving  birth  to  black  chil- 
dren, and  of  white  men  living  with  colored  women 
are  rare  but  nevertheless  are  occasionally  met  with. 
Joseph  Pendarvis  of  Charleston  left  his  property 
to  his  children  by  a  negro  woman,  Parthenia,  "who 
had  lived  with  him  for  many  years,"  and  the  will 
may  be  seen  today  among  the  records  of  the  pro- 
bate court  of  Charleston.  Indeed  so  scandalous 
did  such  illicit  intercourse  become  in  South  Caro- 
lina, that  the  grand  jury  of  1743  presented  the 
"too  common  practice  of  criminal  conversation 
with  negro  and  other  slave  wenches  as  an  enormity 
and  evil  of  general  ill-consequence,"  and  Quincy 
bears  witness  to  the  prevalence  of  this  practice 
when  he  says  that  it  was  "far  from  uncommon  to 
.'  ee  a  gentleman  at  dinner  and  his  reputed  offspring 
i  slave  to  the  master  of  the  table. " 


CHAPTER  IX 

COLONIAL   TRAVEL 

THE  vast  body  of  colonists  stayed  at  home.  They 
lived  quiet  and  uneventful  lives,  little  disturbed 
by  the  lust  for  travel  and  seldom  interrupted  by 
journeys  from  their  place  of  abode.  There  were, 
of  course,  always  those  whose  business  took  them 
from  one  colony  to  another  or  over  the  sea  to  the 
West  Indies  or  to  England;  there  were  the  thou- 
sands, north  and  south,  who  at  one  time  or  another 
went  from  place  to  place  in  an  effort  to  improve 
their  condition;  and,  finally,  there  were  the  New 
Englanders,  the  Germans,  and  the  Scotch-Irish 
who,  in  ever-increasing  numbers,  wandered  west- 
ward towards  the  uplands  and  the  frontier,  led  on 
by  that  unconquerable  restlessness  which  always 
seizes  upon  settlers  in  a  new  land. 

Of  these  the  most  enterprising  wanderers  and 
the  forerunners  of  the  tourists  of  today  were  the 
voyagers  overseas  to  England,  the  Continent,  and 

204 


COLONIAL  TRAVEL  205 

the  West  Indies  for  business,  education,  health, 
and  pleasure.  Many  who  went  to  England  on 
colonial  employment  or  for  education,  took  ad- 
vantage of  the  opportunity  to  see  the  sights  or  to 
make  the  "grand  tour"  of  the  Continent.  One  of 
the  earliest  of  New  Englanders  to  visit  the  Con- 
tinent was  John  Checkley  of  Boston,  who  studied 
at  Oxford  and  traveled  in  Europe  before  1710. 
Another  was  Thomas  Bulfinch,  whose  father  wrote 
to  him  in  Paris  in  1720:  "I  am  glad  of  your  going 
there,  it  being,  I  doubt  not  for  your  good,  though 
somewhat  chargeable. "  Elizabeth,  wife  of  Colo- 
nel Thomas  Jones,  who  went  abroad  in  1728  for 
her  health,  had  one  of  her  husband's  London  corre- 
spondents look  after  her,  provide  her  with  money, 
arrange  for  her  baggage,  and  purchase  what  was 
needful.  She  stayed  for  a  time  in  London,  where 
she  consulted  Sir  Hans  Sloane,  went  to  Bath,  where 
she  took  the  waters,  and  was  gone  from  home 
nearly  two  years.  Laurens  went  to  England  in 
1749,  a  nine  weeks'  voyage,  to  study  the  condi- 
tions of  trade,  and  traveled  on  horseback  to  Man- 
chester, Birmingham,  Worcester,  and  other  towns, 
where  he  was  entertained  by  merchants  to  whom 
he  had  letters  or  with  whom  he  did  business.  The 
many  Virginians  —  Randolphs,  Carters,  and  others 


206  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

—  who  were  at  Gray's  Inn  or  the  Middle  Temple, 
probably  traveled  elsewhere  to  some  extent,  while 
of  the  South  Carolinians  who  visited  Europe  Ralph 
Izard  went  to  Dijon,  Geneva,  Florence,  Rome,  Na- 
ples, and  Strasbourg.  Charles  Carroll  of  Maryland 
was  away  from  home  at  his  studies  and  on  his  travels 
for  sixteen  years,  living  at  St.  Omer  in  Fra  nee,  study- 
ing law  in  England,  visiting  the  Low  Countries,  and 
even  planning  to  go  to  Berlin,  which  he  did  not 
reach,  however,  partly  for  lack  of  time  and  partly 
because  he  heard  that  the  accommodations  were 
bad  and  the  roads  were  infested  with  banditti. 
Many  members  of  the  Baltimore  family  traveled 
widely;  Copley  the  painter  in  1774  went  to  Rome. 
Marseilles,  Paris,  and  London;  Boucher  speaks  of  a 
"gentleman-clergyman  "  in  Virginia  who  had  made 
the  grand  tour  and  was  exceedingly  instructive  and 
entertaining  in  his  conversation;  and  doubtless 
there  were  many  others  who  made  trips  to  foreign 
cities  but  whose  travels  remain  unrecorded.  On 
the  other  hand  members  of  English  and  Scottish 
families  were  often  widely  scattered  throughout 
the  colonial  world  and  travelers  from  the  British 
Isles  would  occasionally  go  from  place  to  place  in 
America  visiting  their  relatives,  trying  new  business 
openings,  or  seeking  recovery  of  their  health. 


COLONIAL  TRAVEL  207 

Those  who  visited  only  the  British  Isles  were 
very  numerous.  The  voyage  from  the  colonies 
was  not  ordinarily  difficult,  though  the  dangers  of 
the  North  Atlantic  and  inconveniences  on  ship- 
board in  those  days  were  sometimes  very  serious. 
"We  had  everything  washed  off  our  decks, "  wrote 
one  who  had  just  arrived  in  England,  "and  was 
once  going  to  stove  all  our  water  and  throw  our 
guns  and  part  of  our  cargo  overboard  to  lighten  the 
ship;  four  days  and  nights  at  one  time  under  a  reef 
mainsail,  our  decks  never  dry  from  the  time  we  left 
Cape  Henry."  But  despite  the  difficulties  ships 
were  constantly  coming  and  going,  and  ample  pro- 
vision for  passengers  was  made.  The  trip  from 
London  to  Boston  sometimes  lasted  only  twenty- 
six  days,  and  five  weeks  to  the  Capes  was  con- 
sidered a  fine  passage.  Chalkley,  the  Quaker,  was 
eight  weeks  sailing  from  Land's  End  to  Virginia, 
and  Peckover  nine  weeks  and  five  days  from  Lon- 
don to  New  York.  An  Irish  traveler  was  forty-two 
days  from  Limerick  to  the  same  city.  Sailing  by 
the  southerly  route  and  into  the  Trades  made  a 
longer  voyage  but  a  pleasanter  one,  and  those  who 
were  able  to  pay  well  for  their  cabins  and  to  take  ex- 
tra provisions  were  in  comfort  compared  with  the 
servants  and  other  emigrants,  whose  experiences 


208  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

below  decks  aft  in  the  steerage  during  stormy  and 
protracted  voyages  must  have  been  harrowing  in 
the  extreme. 

There  was  scarcely  a  merchant  ship  but  took  on 
passengers  going  one  way  or  the  other,  and  of  the 
life  on  board  we  have  many  accounts. 

Hundreds  of  colonists  went  to  the  West  Indies 
to  search  for  employment,  to  investigate  commer- 
cial opportunities,  to  visit  their  plantations  —  for 
there  were  many  who  owned  plantations  in  the 
islands  —  or  merely  to  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  the 
trip.  The  voyage,  which  was  in  any  case  a  com- 
paratively short  one,  varied  slightly  according  to 
the  port  of  departure  and  the  route.  It  usually 
occupied  two  weeks  from  the  Northern  colonies. 
David  Mendes  thought  a  trip  of  twenty-nine  days 
from  Newport  to  Jamaica  a  very  dismal  and  mel- 
ancholy passage,  but  another  Rhode  Islander  in 
1752  estimated  a  trip  to  the  Bahamas  and  back, 
including  the  time  necessary  for  selling  and  pur- 
chasing cargoes,  at  from  two  to  three  and  a  half 
months.  In  Virginia  it  was  customary  to  sail  from 
Norfolk,  the  center  of  that  colony's  trade  with  the 
West  Indies. 

Travel  from  one  continental  colony  to  another 
merely  for  pleasure  was  not  of  frequent  occurrencer 


COLONIAL  TRAVEL  209 

as  far  as  the  colonists  themselves  were  concerned. 
It  was  more  common  for  men  and  women  from  the 
South  and  the  West  Indies  to  visit  the  North  to 
recover  their  health  and  to  enjoy  the  cooler  climate 
than  it  was  for  the  Northerners  to  go  southward. 
William  Byrd,  3d,  and  his  wife  planned  to  travel 
in  the  North  in  1763,  and  in  1770  thirty-two  people 
from  South  Carolina  went  to  Philadelphia,  New 
York,  Newport,  and  Boston  either  as  invalids  or 
as  tourists.  Men  on  business  were  constantly  mov- 
ing about  from  colony  to  colony.  Visitors  from 
England,  Scotland,  and  the  West  Indies  made  long 
journeys  and  were  often  lavishly  entertained  as 
they  passed  from  town  to  town  with  letters  of  in- 
troduction from  one  official  or  merchant  to  another. 
James  Birket  of  Antigua  traveled  from  Portsmouth 
to  the  Chesapeake  in  1750,  and  the  record  of  his 
journey  is  a  document  of  rare  value  in  social  his- 
tory. Lowb ridge  Knight  of  Bristol  went  from 
Georgia  to  Quebec  in  1764.  The  travels  of  George 
Whitefield,  the  preacher,  Peter  Kalm,  the  Swedish 
professor,  Thompson,  the  S.  P.  G.  missionary,  and 
Burnaby,  the  Anglican  clergyman,  are  well  known. T 

1  Other  interesting  accounts  will  be  found  in  the  records  of  the 
Quakers  Edmundson,  Richardson,  Chalkley,  Fothergill,  Wilson, 
Dickinson,  Peckover,  and  Esther  Palmer. 


210  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

In  1764-1765,  Lord  Adam  Gordon  spent  fifteen 
months  going  from  Antigua  through  the  colonies 
to  Montreal  and  Quebec,  returning  by  way  of  New 
England  to  New  York,  whence  he  sailed  for  Eng- 
land. In  1770  Sir  William  Draper  made  the  tour, 
with  a  party  consisting  of  his  nephew,  his  nephew's 
wife,  and  a  Mrs.  Beresford.  The  visit  of  these  two 
titled  Britishers  made  a  considerable  stir  in  Ameri- 
can society  and  was  duly  chronicled  in  the  papers. 
The  impression  made  by  Lord  Adam  and  others 
may  be  inferred  from  Mrs.  Burgwin's  remarks  to 
her  sister:  "In  my  last  I  was  going  to  tell  you 
about  the  great  people  we  had  in  town  [Wilming- 
ton], really  a  colection  of  as  ugly  ungenteal  men 
as  I've  seen,  four  in  number.  Lord  Adam  is 
tall,  slender,  of  the  specter  kind  intirely;  Capt. 
McDonnel  a  highlander  very  sprightly;  the  other 
two  are  Americans  just  come  from  England  where 
they  have  been  educated,  both  very  rich,  which  will 
no  doubt  make  amends  for  every  defect  in  Mr, 
Izard  and  Wormly. " 

Travelers  in  the  early  part  of  the  century  were 
obliged  to  go  chiefly  by  water,  and  they  continued 
to  use  this  method  in  the  colonies  south  of  Penn- 
sylvania in  which  the  wide  rivers,  bays,  and 
swamps  rendered  the  land  routes  difficult  and 


COLONIAL  TRAVEL  211 

dangerous.  At  all  times,  indeed,  the  waterways 
were  quicker  and  less  fatiguing,  particularly  in 
the  case  of  long  journeys.  The  travelers  used  the 
larger  vessels,  ships,  pinks,  barks,  brigs,  brigan- 
tines,  snows,  and  bilanders,  for  ocean  voyages 
and  frequently  for  coastwise  transportation  from 
colony  to  colony. 

For  coastwise  and  West  India  trade  the  com- 
moner colonial  craft  in  use  were  shallops,  sloops, 
and  schooners,  of  which  those  built  in  New  Eng- 
land were  the  best  known.  Bermuda  sloops  or 
sloops  built  after  the  Bermuda  model,  which  were 
prime  sailers  and  often  engaged  in  the  colonial 
carrying  trade,  were  common  in  the  South.  For 
passage  up  and  down  inland  waters  such  as  the 
Hudson  River  and  Chesapeake  Bay,  and  for  sup- 
plying the  big  merchant  ships  in  Southern  waters, 
sloops  were  the  rule.  Rafts  contrived  for  carrying 
lumber  and  partly  loaded  before  launching  with 
timber  so  framed  as  to  be  almost  solid,  were  floated 
down  the  rivers.  For  ordinary  purposes  —  for 
transporting  wood,  lumber,  tobacco,  rice,  indigo, 
and  naval  stores  on  shallow  inland  watercourses  - 
the  colonists  used  various  kinds  of  flatboats,  each 
with  its  boss  or  patroon  and  often  carrying  main- 
sail and  jib  for  sailing  before  the  wind.  For  short 


COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

distances  they  used  dingies,  yawls,  and  longboats 
as  well  as  canoes  fashioned  in  many  sizes  and 
shapes  —  either  dugouts  or  light  craft  made  of 
cedar  and  cypress,  propelled  by  paddles  or  oars, 
and  in  some  cases  fitted  with  thwarts  and  steps  for 
masts  and  some  even  with  cabins  and  forecastles. 

Flat-bottomed  "fall-boats  "  were  used  for  freight- 
ing and  passenger  travel  on  the  Connecticut  River 
above  Hartford,  but  they  had  no  sleeping  accom- 
modations and  passengers  had  to  put  up  for  the 
night  at  taverns  along  the  route.  Such  wealthy 
planters  as  the  Carters  on  the  Rappahannock  had 
family  boats  with  four  and  six  oars  and  awnings. 
The  customs  officials  at  all  the  large  ports  had  row- 
boats  and  barges.  Some  of  these  craft  were  hand- 
somely painted,  and  at  New  York,  for  example, 
carried  sails,  awnings,  a  coxswain,  and  bargemen 
in  livery. 

As  the  colonists  made  little  provision  for  the  im- 
provement of  navigation,  shipwrecks  were  of  all  too 
frequent  occurrence.  Vessels  ran  ashore,  grounded 
on  sand  bars,  or  went  to  pieces  on  shoals  and  reefs. 
Many  lighthouses  were  built  between  1716  and 
1 775,  chiefly  of  brick  and  from  fifty  to  one  hundred 
and  twenty  feet  high,  but  the  lights  were  poor  and 
unreliable.  The  earliest  beacon  showed  oil  lamps 


COLONIAL  TRAVEL 

in  a  lantern  formed  of  close-set  window  sashes. 
The  most  important  early  lights  were  in  Boston 
Harbor,  off  Newport,  on  Sandy  Hook,  on  Cape 
Henry,  in  Middle  Bay  Island,  Charleston,  and  on 
Tybee  Island,  Savannah,  and  toward  the  end  of  the 
period  in  Portsmouth  Harbor  and  at  Halifax.  The 
Boston  light  had  a  glazed  cage,  roofed  with  copper 
and  supported  on  a  brick  arch.  The  lamps  had  to 
be  supplied  with  oil  two  or  three  times  in  the  night 
and  even  though  they  were  snuffed  every  hour  the 
glass  was  never  free  from  smoke.  Not  until  the 
lighthouse  at  Halifax  was  erected  in  1772  was  a 
I :etter  system  adopted.  In  many  of  the  more  im- 
portant and  dangerous  channels,  as  at  the  eastern 
end  of  Long  Island  Sound,  in  the  North  Carolina 
inlets,  and  among  the  bars  of  the  Southern  rivers, 
buoys  were  placed,  often  at  private  expense,  and 
everywhere  pilots  were  required  for  the  larger 
vessels  entering  New  London,  New  York,  and 
other  harbors,  passing  through  the  Capes  of  Vir- 
ginia, navigating  Roanoke  and  Ocracock  inlets, 
going  up  from  Tybee  to  Savannah,  and  sometimes 
on  the  more  dangerous  reaches  of  the  rivers. 

As  population  increased  and  settlement  was  ex- 
tended farther  and  farther  westward  from  the 
region  of  coastwise  navigation  to  areas  not  easily 


214  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

reached  even  from  the  rivers,  the  colonists  were 
forced  to  depend  more  and  more  upon  travel  by 
land.  Trails  were  widened  into  tote  roads  and 
bridle  paths,  and  these  in  turn  into  carriage  roads, 
until  they  grew  into  highways  connecting  towns 
with  towns  and  colonies  with  colonies.  The  pro- 
cess of  developing  this  vast  system  of  pathways 
through  the  back  country  was  slow,  expensive,  and 
very  imperfect.  Nothing  but  sheer  necessity  could 
have  compelled  men  to  drive  these  roads  through 
the  dense  forests  and  tangled  undergrowth,  across 
marshes,  and  over  rocky  hills;  nothing  else  could 
have  made  them  endure  the  arduous  and  danger- 
ous riding  through  "the  howling  wilderness,"  as 
the  colonists  themselves  called  it,  particularly  in 
the  South  and  the  back  country,  where  the  roads 
ran  always  through  lonely  woods.  The  menace  of 
treacherous  ground,  falling  trees,  high  river  banks, 
and  dangerous  fords  were  real  to  every  traveler. 
All  the  records  of  these  early  journeys  refer  to 
the  ever  present  danger  from  the  accidents  and 
injuries  of  highway  travel.  In  the  South  guides 
were  particularly  necessary,  for  to  miss  one's  way 
was  a  harrowing  and  dangerous  experience. 

But  necessity  won  the  day.     Tremendous  ad- 
vances were  made  in  the  eighteenth  century,  when 


COLONIAL  TRAVEL  215 

the  need  of  more  rapid  and  extended  communica- 
tion by  land  became  imperative  and  the  postal 
service  in  particular  was  demanding  better  facili- 
ties. The  colonies  now  made  strenuous  efforts  to 
improve  their  roads,  increase  the  number  of  their 
ferries,  and  build  causeways  and  bridges  wherever 
possible.  New  England  soon  became  a  network  of 
roads  and  highways,  with  main  routes  connecting 
the  important  towns,  country  roads  radiating  from 
junction  points,  and  lanes,  pent  roads,  and  private 
ways  leading  to  outlying  sections.  Philadelphia  be- 
came the  terminus  of  such  roads  from  the  country 
behind  it,  as  those  running  from  Lancaster,  York, 
Reading,  and  the  Susquehanna.  From  Baltimore, 
Alexandria,  Falmouth,  and  Richmond  roads  ran 
westward  and  joined  the  great  wagon  and  cattle 
thoroughfare  which  stretched  across  Maryland  and 
Virginia,  by  way  of  York,  the  Monocacy,  Win- 
chester, and  Staunton,  to  the  Indian  country  of 
the  Catawbas,  Cherokees,  and  Chickasaws. 

The  great  intercolonial  highways,  which  were 
also  used  as  post  roads,  ran  from  Portsmouth  to 
Savannah.  Starting  from  Portsmouth  in  1760, 
the  traveler  would  first  make  his  way  over  an  ex- 
cellent piece  of  smooth,  hard-graveled  road  avail- 
able for  stage,  carriage,  or  horse,  southward  to 


216  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

the  Merrimac,  which  he  would  cross  on  a  sailing 
ferry,  and  thence  proceed  by  way  of  Ipswich  to 
Boston.  William  Barrell  started  on  this  trip  by 
stage  in  August,  1766,  but,  finding  the  vehicle  too 
crowded  for  warm  weather  got  out  at  Ipswich  and 
finished  the  journey  in  a  chaise.  From  Boston  one 
would  have  the  choice  of  four  ways  of  going  to 
New  Haven:  one  by  way  of  Providence  to  New 
London;  a  second  by  way  of  Providence,  Bristol, 
and  Newport,  a  troublesome  journey  involving 
three  ferry  crossings;  a  third  over  the  Old  Bay 
road  to  Springfield  and  thence  south  through  Hart- 
ford and  Meriden;  and  a  fourth,  much  used  by 
Connecticut  people,  diagonally  through  the  north- 
eastern part  of  the  colony,  crossing  the  dangerous 
Quinebaug  and  Shetuckit  rivers,  and  reaching 
New  Haven  by  way  of  either  Hartford  or  Middle- 
town.  At  Springfield,  if  the  traveler  wished,  he 
could  continue  westward  to  Kinderhook  and  Al- 
bany along  a  road  used  by  traders  and  the  militia, 
or  at  Hartford  he  could  take  through  northwestern 
Connecticut  one  of  the  newest  and  worst  roads  in 
New  England,  to  be  known  later  as  the  Albany 
turnpike.  Lord  Adam  Gordon,  who  passed  over 
this  road  in  going  from  Albany  to  Hartford  in  1765, 
described  that  section  which  ran  through  the 


COLONIAL  TRAVEL  217 

Greenwoods  from  Norfolk  to  Simsbury  as  "the 
worst  road  I  have  seen  in  America, "  and  the  colony 
itself  so  far  agreed  in  1758  as  to  consider  it  "ill- 
chosen  and  unfit  for  use  and  not  sufficiently  direct 
and  convenient. "  Though  efforts  were  made  to 
repair  it,  the  road  remained  for  years  very  crooked 
and  encumbered  with  fallen  trees. 

Once  he  had  reached  New  Haven,  the  traveler 
would  find  that  the  road  to  New  York,  which 
stretched  along  the  Sound,  still  required  about 
two  days  of  hard  riding  or  driving.  These  Con- 
necticut roads  had  indeed  a  bad  reputation.  The 
traveler's  progress  was  interrupted  by  trouble- 
some and  even  dangerous  ferries  and  he  frequently 
had  to  ride  over  much  soft,  rocky,  and  treacherous 
ground.  Mrs.  Knight  described  their  terrors  in 
1704;  Peckover  says  in  1743  that  he  "had  abun- 
dance of  very  rough,  stony,  uneven  roads";  Birket 
in  1750  calls  parts  of  them  "most  intollerable" 
and  "most  miserable";  and  Barrell  on  "old  Sor- 
rell"  was  nearly  worn  out  by  them  sixteen  years 
later.  Though  Cuyler  of  New  York,  who  went 
over  them  to  Rhode  Island  in  1757  in  a  curricle 
or  two-horse  chair,  failed  to  complain  of  his  jour- 
ney, his  good  nature  may  be  due  to  the  fact  that 
he  went  for  a  wife,  "a  very  agreeable  young  lady 


218  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

with  a  gentle  fortune. "  Quincy  preferred  to  take 
boat  from  New  York  to  Boston  rather  than  face 
the  inconveniences  of  these  notorious  roads .  Many 
travelers  took  a  sloop  from  Newport  or  New  Lon- 
don, and  by  going  to  Sterling  or  Oyster  Bay,  in 
order  to  avoid  the  pine  barrens  in  the  center  of 
Long  Island,  and  proceeding  thence  to  New  York, 
they  not  only  saved  fifty  miles  but  also  had  a  better 
road.  There  was  a  ferry  from  Nor  walk  to  Hunt- 
ington,  but  that  was  chiefly  for  those  who  desired 
to  go  to  Long  Island  without  taking  the  rounda- 
bout journey  through  New  York. 

The  traveler  might  go  to  Albany  from  New  York, 
either  by  sloop  or  by  road,  preferably  along  the 
eastern  bank.  If  he  were  going  southward,  he 
might  select  one  of  three  ways.  He  could  cross  to 
Paulus  Hook  (now  Jersey  City)  by  ferry  or  could 
go  to  Perth  Amboy  by  sloop  through  the  Kill  van 
Kull  and  Staten  Island  Sound,  or  by  ferrying  to 
Staten  Island  he  could  traverse  the  northern  end 
of  the  island  and  take  a  second  ferry  to  Elizabeth- 
port.  Once  on  New  Jersey  soil,  he  would  find  two 
customary  routes  to  Philadelphia :  one  by  road  to 
New  Brunswick  and  Bordentown  and  down  the 
Delaware  by  water;  the  other  by  the  same  road  to 
Bordentown,  thence  by  land  to  Burlington,  and 


COLONIAL  TRAVEL  219 

across  the  river  by  boat.  In  1770  a  stage  company 
offered  to  make  the  trip  in  two  days,  and  thus 
rendered  it  possible  for  a  New  York  merchant  to 
spend  two  nights  and  a  day  in  Philadelphia  on 
business  and  be  back  in  five  days,  a  rapid  trip  for 
the  period. 

Unless  one  were  going  into  the  back  country 
by  way  of  Lancaster  and  York  south  west  ward 
or  from  Lancaster  or  Reading  northwest  to  Fort 
Augusta  (now  Sunbury)  and  the  West  Branch, 
there  was  but  one  road  which  he  could  take  in 
leaving  Philadelphia.  It  ran  by  way  of  Chester 
along  the  Delaware,  crossed  the  Brandywine  toll- 
bridge  to  Wilmington,  and  ran  on  to  Christina 
bridge,  the  starting  point  for  Maryland  and  the 
Chesapeake  as  well  as  the  delivery  center  for  goods 
shipped  from  Philadelphia  for  transfer  to  the  East- 
ern and  Western  shores.  Here  the  road  divided: 
one  branch  went  down  the  Eastern  Shore  to  Ches- 
tertown,  from  which  point  the  traveler  might  cross 
the  Bay  to  Annapolis;  the  other  rounded  the  head 
of  the  Bay,  crossed  the  Susquehanna  near  Port 
Deposit,  and  so  ran  on  to  Joppa,  Baltimore,  and 
Annapolis.  Birket  tells  of  passing  over  the  Sus- 
quehanna in  January  on  the  ice,  and  describes  how 
the  horses  were  led  across  and  the  party  followed 


220  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

on  foot,  with  the  exception  of  two  women  who  sat 
on  ladders  "  and  were  drawn  over  by  two  men,  who 
slipt  off  their  shoes  and  run  so  fast  that  we  could 
not  keep  way  with  them."  From  Annapolis  the 
traveler  could  go  directly  to  Alexandria  by  way  of 
Upper  Marlboro,  or  he  could  take  a  somewhat  more 
southerly  route  to  Piscataway  Creek  and  thence 
across  the  Potomac  by  ferry  until  he  reached  the 
road  from  Alexandria  to  Richmond  and  proceeded 
southward  by  way  of  Dumfries  and  Fredericks- 
burg.  From  Fredericksburg  and  Falmouth  a  road 
ran  to  Winchester  through  Ashby's  Gap  and  was 
much  used  for  hauling  supplies  northwest  from 
the  stores  there  and  for  bringing  down  flour  and 
iron  from  ^he  farms  and  Zane's  iron  works  in  the 
Shenandoah.  From  Richmond  one  might  go  di- 
rectly to  Williamsburg,  cross  the  James  at  James- 
town by  the  Hog  Island  Ferry,  and  continue 
by  a  rough  road  through  Nansemond  County, 
skirting  west  of  the  Dismal  Swamp  to  Eden- 
ton;  or  he  might  cross  the  James  farther  down 
the  peninsula  at  Newport  or  Hampton,  go  to 
Norfolk  by  sloop,  and  thence  continue  south  on 
the  other  side  of  the  swamp  by  way  of  North 
River,  and  southwest  through  the  Albemarle 
counties  to  the  same  destination.  Another  road 


COLONIAL  TRAVEL  221 

vvhich  ran   through  Petersburg  and  Suffolk  was 
sometimes  used. 

The  traveling  and  postal  routes  south  of  Annapo- 
lis were  much  less  fixed  than  those  in  the  North, 
for  transit  by  water  was  as  frequent  as  by  land, 
and  the  possible  combinations  of  land  and  water 
routes  were  many  and  varied.  According  to  the 
regulations  of  1738,  which  for  the  first  time  estab- 
lished a  settled  mail  service  from  the  North  to 
Williamsburg  and  Edenton,  the  postrider  met  the 
Philadelphia  courier  at  the  Susquehanna ,  rode  thence 
to  Annapolis,  crossed  the  Potomac  to  New  Post 
-the  plantation  of  ex-Governor  Spots  wood,  the 
deputy  postmaster-general,  on  the  Rappahannock 
just  below  Fredericksburg  —  and  ended  his  trip 
at  Williamsburg,  whence  a  stage  carried  the  mail 
to  Ederiton  by  way  of  Hog  Island  Ferry  and  Nanse- 
mond  Court  House.  The  uncertainties  of  the  East- 
ern Shore  postal  connections  as  late  as  1761  can 
be  judged  from  a  letter  which  John  Schaw  wrote  in 
that  year:  "You'll  observe,"  he  says,  "how  diffi- 
cult it  is  to  get  a  letter  from  you,  that  post  office  at 
Annapolis  being  a  grave  of  all  letters  to  this  side  of 
the  Bay.  I  am  sending  this  by  way  of  Kent  Island, 
and  am  in  hopes  it  will  get  sooner  to  you  than  yours 
dH  to  me." 


222  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

From  Edenton  there  was  but  a  single  road  which 
ran  as  directly  as  possible  to  Charleston,  but  never- 
theless it  was  long,  arduous,  and  slow.  There  were 
many  rivers  to  be  crossed,  including  a  five-mile 
ferry  across  Albemarle  Sound,  detours  to  be  made 
around  the  wide  mouths  of  the  Pamlico  and  the 
Neuse,  and  much  low  and  wet  ground  to  be  avoided. 
Frederick  Jones  took  six  days  to  go  from  Williams- 
burg  to  New  Bern.  Schoepf  records  how  he  was 
delayed  at  Edenton  four  days  because  the  ferry- 
man had  allowed  his  negroes  to  go  off  with  the  boat 
on  a  pleasure  excursion  of  their  own  —  an  indul- 
gence which  shows  that  even  after  the  Revolution 
travelers  in  that  section  were  few  and  far  between. 
From  New  Bern  to  the  Cape  Fear  or  Wilmington 
was  not  a  difficult  journey,  for  Peter  du  Bois  ac- 
complished it  on  horseback  in  1757  with  no  other 
comment  than  an  expression  of  satisfaction  at  the 
fried  chicken  and  eggs  that  he  had  for  breakfast 
and  the  duck  and  fried  hominy  that  he  ate  for 
dinner.  From  Wilmington,  after  ferrying  over  to 
Negro  Head  Point  with  bad  boats  and  very  poor 
service  in  1764,  the  traveler  might  continue,  by 
a  lonely,  desolate,  and  little  frequented  way,  to 
Georgetown  and  Charleston.  It  was  a  noteworthy 
event  in  the  history  of  the  colonies  when  the  first 


COLONIAL  TRAVEL  223 

Dost  stage  was  established  in  1739  south  of  Eden- 
ton  and  postal  communication  was  at  last  opened 
all  the  way  from  Portsmouth  and  Boston  through 
the  principal  towns  and  places  in  New  York, 
Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  Virginia,  and  North 
Carolina  to  Charleston,  and  even  thence  by  the 
occasional  services  of  private  individuals  to  Geor- 
gia and  points  beyond.  At  Charleston,  which  was 
the  distributing  center  for  the  far  South,  the  road 
branched,  and  one  line  went  back  through  Dor- 
chester, Orangeburg  Court  House,  and  Ninety-Six, 
to  the  towns  of  the  lower  Cherokee,  a  route  used 
by  caravans  and  Indian  traders;  another  turned 
off  at  Dorchester  for  Fort  Moore  and  Fort  Augusta 
on  the  upper  Savannah;  and  a  third  curved  away 
from  the  coast  to  Savannah  to  avoid  the  rivers  and 
sounds  of  Beaufort  County.  In  1767  the  mail  was 
carried  from  Savannah  to  Augusta  and  on  to  Pen- 
sacola  by  way  of  St.  Marks  and  Appalachicola,  but 
the  journeys  were  dangerous  and  sometimes  the 
postman  could  not  get  through  on  account  of  raids 
by  the  Creek  Indians. 

Land  travel  before  1770  had  become  very  com- 
mon even  in  the  South.  Laurens  wrote  to  John 
Rutherfurd  of  Cape  Fear:  "I  believe  you  are  the 
greatest  traveler  in  America.  You  talk  of  a  400 


224  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

mile  ride  as  any  other  man  would  one  of  40.  I 
hope  these  frequent  long  journeys  will  not  preju- 
dice your  health."  Laurens  himself  usually  went 
by  boat  to  visit  his  plantations  in  Georgia  —  a 
single  day's  journey  instead  of  two  by  horseback; 
but  in  1769  he  went  off  for  seven  weeks  almost  a 
thousand  miles  through  the  woods  to  visit  his  up- 
river  properties.  Governor  Montagu  in  1768  went 
all  the  way  from  Boston  to  Charleston  by  land; 
and  the  Anglican  missionaries  traveled  long  dis- 
tances in  Maryland,  Virginia,  and  North  Carolina 
to  visit  their  parishioners  and  baptize  the  children. 
Merchants  are  known  to  have  journeyed  far  to 
collect  their  debts.  Allason  speaks  of  going  from 
forty  to  ninety  miles  from  house  to  house  on  col- 
lecting tours;  merchants  who  sold  their  goods  "in 
the  lumping  way"  rode  up  and  down  the  river 
towns  and  plantations  in  their  efforts  to  dispose  of 
their  consignments;  and  itinerant  pedlars,  with 
their  horses  and  packs,  wandered  on  from  place  to 
place,  South  as  well  as  North,  retailing  their  wares. 
Though  journeying  by  land  was  at  all  times 
an  arduous  experience,  it  was  particularly  difficult 
during  heavy  rains  and  freshets,  in  the  winter  sea- 
son, and  when  forest  fires  were  burning.  The 
winters  were  as  variable  then  as  now.  Often  there 


COLONIAL  TRAVEL  225 

was  no  ice  before  February  and  many  a  green 
Christmas  is  recorded. x  In  other  years  the  season 
would  be  one  of  prolonged  cold,  the  winter  of  1771- 
1772  having  nineteen  "plentiful  effusions  of  snow." 
Checkley  records  a  frost  in  Boston  on  June  14, 1735, 
and  a  snowstorm  on  the  30th  of  October  in  the 
same  year.  In  December,  1752,  the  temperature  in 
Charleston  dropped  from  70°  to  24°  in  a  single  day, 
and  there  were  many  winters  in  the  South  when 
frost  injured  the  crops  and  killed  the  orange  blos- 
soms. Once,  in  the  winter  of  1738,  no  mail  reached 
\Villiamsburg  for  six  weeks  on  account  of  the  bad 
weather.  Mrs.  Manigault  of  Charleston  notes  in 
her  diary  that  the  burial  of  her  daughter  in  Feb- 
ruary had  to  be  postponed  on  account  of  the 
deep  snow. 

Rivers  were  crossed  at  fords  whenever  possible, 
but  ferries  were  introduced  from  the  first  on  the 
main  lines  of  travel.  All  sorts  of  craft  were  utilized 
for  crossing:  canoes  for  passengers,  flatboats  and 
scows  for  horses  and  carriages,  and  sailing  vessels, 

1  New  England.  "Feb.  12,  1703.  Summer  weather,  no  winter 
yet."  Green's  Diary.  Yet  on  the  28th  of  September  following 
there  were  two  inches  of  snow.  Preston  in  his  diary  says  of  the 
winter  of  1754-1755:  "This  winter  was  open,  no  sledding  at  all." 
Essex  Institute,  Historical  Collections,  vol.  vm,  p.  222;  vol.  xi,  p 
258,  note. 


COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

chiefly  sloops,  where  the  crossings  were  longer 
and  therefore  more  dangerous.  Rope  ferries  were 
necessary  wherever  the  current  was  swift,  though 
they  were  always  an  annoying  obstruction  on  navi- 
gable rivers.  At  much  traveled  places  two  boats 
were  frequently  required,  one  on  each  bank.  The 
ferryman  was  summoned  usually  by  hallooing,  by 
ringing  a  bell,  or  by  building  a  fire  in  the  marshes. 
Licenses  for  ferries  were  issued  and  rates  were  fixed 
by  the  Assembly  in  the  North  and  the  county  court 
in  the  South.  Passage  was  ordinarily  free  to  the 
postrider  and  to  public  officials,  and  in  Connecticut 
to  children  going  to  school,  worshipers  going  to 
church,  and  sometimes  to  militia  men  on  their  way 
to  musters. 

Bridges  over  small  streams  were  built  before  the 
end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  but  those  over  the 
larger  rivers  were  late  in  construction,  because  as  a 
rule  the  difficulties  involved  were  too  great  for  the 
colonial  builders  to  cope  with.  Many  of  these 
bridges  were  the  result  of  private  enterprise,  and 
toll  was  taken  by  permission  of  Assembly  or  court. 
First  they  were  always  built  of  timbers,  in  the  form 
of  "geometry  work, "  with  causeways.  The  raising 
of  a  bridge  in  New  England  was  a  public  event, 
at  which  the  people  of  the  surrounding  country 


COLONIAL  TRAVEL  227 

appeared  to  offer  their  services.  Bridges  con- 
structed over  such  swift  rivers  as  the  Quinebaug 
in  Connecticut  had  to  be  renewed  many  times,  as 
they  were  frequently  carried  away  by  ice  or  freshets , 
Stone  bridges  could  be  built  only  where  the  dis- 
tances were  short  and  the  water  wras  comparatively 
shallow.  Peter  Kalm  mentions  two  stone  bridges 
on  the  way  from  Trenton  to  Philadelphia. x  There 
was  a  very  good  wooden  bridge  over  the  Charles 
River  between  Boston  and  Cambridge,  and  others 
were  built  over  the  Mystic,  the  Quinnipiac,  the 
Harlem,  the  Brandy  wine,  Christina  Creek,  and 

1  One  of  these  is  described  by  another  traveler  as  follows:  "Sd 
Bridge  stands  on  two  pillars  of  stone  and  arched  over  makes  three 
arches.  The  middlemost  is  something  largest  and  is  about  20  foot 
wide.  The  river  was  low  it  having  been  a  very  dry  time.  I  rid  through 
under  the  bridge  up  streem  to  view  the  under  side.  I  counted  the 
stones  that  go  round  the  mouth  of  one  arch  and  there  is  sixty.  One 
arch  hath  eighty  stones  round  the  mouth  of  it.  They  seem  all  of  a 
size  and  seem  to  be  about  18  inches  long  and  2  broad  and  six  inches 
thick.  The  lower  end  of  each  stone  is  much  less  than  the  upper  end 
and  laid  in  lyme  (as  all  the  bridge  is)  and  it  looks  in  the  shape  of  an 
ovens  mouth.  The  bridge  is  about  20  rod  in  length  and  gradually 
rounding,  the  stones  covered  over  on  the  top  with  earth  and  wide 
enough  for  2  or  3  carts  to  pass  a  breast.  On  each  side  is  a  stone  wall 
built  up  about  3  foot  and  an  half,  a  flat  hewn  stone  on  the  top  about 
4  foot  in  length  and  12  or  14  inches  wide  and  about  4  inches  thick  and 
an  iron  staple  let  in  to  each  joynt,  one  part  of  said  staple  in  one  stone 
and  the  other  part  of  said  staple  in  the  other  stone,  and  80  stones 
covers  the  wall  on  one  side  which  I  counted  and  the  other  I  suppose 
the  same.  The  bridge  is  much  wider  at  each  end  than  the  midle  and 
was  built  at  the  cost  of  the  publick  for  the  benefitt  of  travelers.  " 


228  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

many  of  the  upper  waters  and  smaller  streams 
in  the  South. 

In  the  early  days  riding  on  horseback  was  the 
chief  mode  of  traveling  on  land,  but  in  the  seven- 
teenth century  wheeled  vehicles  appeared  in  Vir- 
ginia and  to  a  limited  extent  in  the  North,  though 
for  the  purpose  of  carting  rather  than  for  driving. 
Hadley  in  Massachusetts  had  only  five  chaises  in 
the  town  before  1795. J  The  usual  styles  were  the 
two-wheeled  and  four-wheeled  chaises  with  or 
without  tops,  the  riding  chair,  sulky,  and  solo  chair, 
which  were  little  more  than  chaise  bodies  without 
tops,  the  curricle,  phaeton,  gig,  calash,  coach,  and 
chariot.  Sedan  chairs  could  be  hired  by  the  hour 
in  Charleston,  and  stagecoaches  were  in  use  in  all 
the  colonies.  Four-wheeled  chaises  drawn  by  two 
horses  could  be  transformed  into  one-horse  chairs 
by  taking  off  the  front  wheels,  but  coaches  and 
chariots  were  generally  drawn  by  four,  six,  and 
even  eight  horses.  Chaises,  curricles,  and  phaetons 
were  the  rule  in  the  North,  and  coaches  and  chari- 
ots in  Virginia  and  South  Carolina;  yet  chairs  and 
chaises  were  common  enough  in  the  South,  and 


1  Hempstead,  though  mentioning  a  few  chaises  and  chairs  in  New 
London,  makes  it  clear  in  his  diary  that  he  never  rode  in  one  himself 
He  traveled  always  on  horseback. 


COLONIAL  TRAVEL 

Henry  Vassall  of  Massachusetts  had  his  coach  and 
chariot  as  well  as  his  chaise  and  curricle.  Many  of 
the  coaches  and  chariots  were  very  ornate,  neatly 
carved,  handsomely  gilded,  lined  with  dove-colored, 
blue,  and  crimson  cloth,  and  sometimes  furnished 
with  large  front  glass  plates  in  one  piece,  with  the 
arms  of  the  owner  on  the  door  panels.  The  harness 
was  bright  with  brass  or  silver-gilt  metal  work  and 
ornamented  with  bells  and  finery,  and  coach  and 
horses  were  adorned  with  plumes.  Equipages  of 
such  magnificence  appeared  in  Virginia  as  early  as 
the  first  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Chaises 
were  more  somber,  though  occasionally  set  off 
to  advantage  with  brass  hubs  and  wheel  boxes. 
Though  vehicles  and  harness  were  at  first  usually 
imported  from  England,  chaise  making  in  the  North 
gradually  developed  into  an  industry,  and  chairs, 
chaises,  and  phaetons  were  frequently  exported  to 
Southern  ports.  Beverley  once  wrote  to  England 
for  a  set  of  secondhand  harness  from  the  royal 
mews,  under  the  impression  that  some  of  them 
were  very  little  the  worse  for  wear,  but  when  the 
consignment  arrived  he  was  greatly  disappointed 
to  discover  that  the  harness  was  "sad  trash  not 
worth  anything. "  In  the  Middle  and  New  Eng- 
land colonies  people  usually  traveled  in  winter  in 


230  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

sleighs.  These  vehicles  are  described  by  Birket  as 
standing  "  upon  two  pieces  of  wood  that  lyes  flat  OD 
the  ground  like  a  North  of  England  sled,  the  fore- 
part turning  up  with  a  bent  to  slyde  over  stones 
or  any  little  rising  and  shod  with  smooth  plates  of 
iron  to  prevent  their  wearing  away  too  fast. " 

We  have  now  described  in  somewhat  cursory 
fashion  the  leading  characteristics  and  contrasts 
of  colonial  life  in  the  eighteenth  century.  The 
description  is  manifestly  not  complete,  for  many 
interesting  phases  of  that  life  have  been  left  out  of 
account.  Little  or  nothing  has  been  said  of  trade 
and  business,  money,  newspapers,  the  postal  serv- 
ice, prose  and  poetry,  wit  and  humor,  and  the 
lighter  side  of  government,  politics,  and  the  pro- 
fessions. To  have  made  the  account  complete, 
something  of  each  of  these  aspects  of  colonial  life 
should  have  been  included;  but  there  are  limita- 
tions of  space  and  of  material.  Extensive  as  is  the 
evidence  available  regarding  the  weightier  aspects 
of  early  American  life,  there  is  but  a  slender  resi- 
due from  the  vicissitudes  of  history  to  throw  any 
sufficient  light  upon  some  of  the  habits,  practices, 
and  daily  concerns  of  the  colonists  in  the  ordinary 
routine  of  their  existence.  Our  forefathers  on  this 


COLONIAL  TRAVEL  231 

continent  were  not  given  to  talking  about  them- 
selves, to  gossiping  on  paper  and  in  print,  however 
much  they  may  have  gossiped  in  their  daily  inter* 
course,  and  to  recording  for  future  generations 
everyday  matters  that  must  have  seemed  to  them 
trivial  and  commonplace.  They  have  left  us  only 
a  few  letters  of  an  intimate  character,  few  diaries 
that  are  more  than  meager  chronicles,  and  scarcely 
any  picturesque  anecdotes  or  narrations  that  have 
illustrative  value  in  an  attempt  to  reconstruct  the 
daily  life  of  the  colonist. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  omission  of  all  in  a  book  of 
this  character  is  the  failure  to  speak  of  mental 
attitudes  and  opinions.  What  did  the  colonists 
think  of  each  other,  of  the  mother  country,  and  of 
the  foreign  world  that  lay  almost  beyond  their 
ken?  One  may  readily  discover  contrasts  in  gov- 
ernment, commerce,  industry,  agriculture,  habits 
of  life,  and  social  relations,  but  it.  is  not  so  easy  for 
us  nowadays  to  penetrate  the  colonist's  mind,  to 
fathom  his  motives,  and  to  determine  his  likes  and 
dislikes,  fears  and  prejudices,  jealousies  and  rival- 
ries. In  matters  of  opinion  the  colonists,  except 
in  New  England,  were  not  accustomed  to  disclose 
their  inner  thoughts,  though  it  is  not  at  all  unlikely 
that  large  numbers  of  them  had  no  inner  thoughts 


232  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

to  disclose.  Moreover  the  people  were  of  many 
origins,  many  minds,  many  varieties  of  temper,  and 
grades  of  mental  activity,  and,  as  was  to  be  ex- 
pected, they  differed  very  widely  in  their  ideas 
on  religion,  conduct,  and  morals.  They  were  Puri- 
tans, Quakers,  and  Anglicans;  they  were  English, 
French,  Germans,  and  Scots;  and  they  were  dwell- 
ers in  seaports  and  inland  towns,  on  small  farms 
and  large  plantations,  in  the  tidewater,  in  the  up- 
country,  along  the  frontier,  under  temperate  or 
semitropical  skies. 

As  a  consequence  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that 
to  the  NewEnglander  the  well-known  hospitality, 
good  breeding,  and  politeness  of  the  Southerners 
seemed  little  more  than  a  sham  in  the  face  of  their 
inhumanity  and  barbarity  towards  servants  and 
slaves,  their  looseness  of  morals,  and  their  fond- 
ness for  horse  racing,  drinking,  and  gambling. 
Even  Quincy  himself,  no  ill-natured  critic,  could 
find  in  Virginia  no  courteous  gentlemen  and  gen- 
erous hosts  but  omy  "knaves  and  sharpers"  given 
to  practices  that  were  "knavish  and  trickish." 
Fithian  was  warned  that  when  he  went  to  Vir- 
ginia he  would  go  "into  the  midst  of  many  dan- 
gerous temptations;  gay  company,  frequent  en- 
tertainment, little  practical  devotion  no  remote 


COLONIAL  TRAVEL 

pretention  to  heart  religion,  daily  examples  in  men 
of  the  highest  quality  of  luxury,  intemperence, 
and  impiety. " 

Little  more  exact,  on  the  other  hand,  was  the 
Southerner's  opinion  of  New  England,  to  him  a 
land  of  pretended  holiness  and  disagreeable  self- 
righteousness.  He  doubted  the  willingness  of  the 
New  Englander  to  carry  out  his  promises  or  to  live 
up  to  his  resolves;  he  dubbed  him  a  saint,  criticized 
his  Yankee  shrewdness,  and  charged  him  with 
business  methods  that  were  little  short  of  thievery. 
These  sentiments  were  not  confined,  however, 
to  the  people  of  the  South.  The  Quakers  also 
had  a  deep-seated  antipathy  for  New  England,  in 
part  because  they  remembered  with  bitterness  and 
reproach  the  old-time  treatment  of  their  forerun- 
ners there.  Stephen  Collins  of  Philadelphia  once 
called  the  merchants  of  Boston  "  deceitful,  canting, 
Presbyterian  deacons."  Beekman  of  New  York 
voiced  a  widespread  feeling  when  he  charged  the 
men  of  Connecticut  with  selling  goods  under- 
weight, "a  cursed  fraud,"  and  added  that  "seven- 
eights  of  the  people  I  have  credited  in  New  Eng- 
land has  proved  to  me  [such]  d — d  ungreatful 
cheating  fellows  that  I  am  now  almost  afraid  to 
trust  any  man  in  Connecticut  though  he  be  well 


234  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

recommended  from  others. "  Often  the  lack  in  the 
North  of  open-handed  hospitality  and  a  polite 
demeanor  toward  strangers  called  forth  remark. 
One  traveler  wrote  that  "the  hospitality  of  the 
gentlemen  of  Carolina  to  strangers  is  a  thing  not 
known  in  our  more  northern  region";  and  John 
London  of  Wilmington  said  of  New  Haven,  where 
he  lived  for  some  time,  that  "in  general  the 
manners  of  this  place  has  more  of  blimtness  than 
refinement  and  want  those  little  attentions  that 
constitute  real  politeness  and  are  so  agreeable  to 
strangers. "  Such  criticism  was  not  unknown  from 
New  Englanders  themselves,  for  Dr.  Johnson  once 
said  that  Punderson's  failure  as  a  clergyman  was 
due  to  his  "want  of  politeness,"  and  Roger  W7ol- 
cott  named  censoriousness,  detraction,  and  drink- 
ing  too  much  cider  as  the  leading  "blemishes" 
of  Connecticut. 

The  fondness  for  innuendo  and  disparagement 
which  these  citations  disclose  was  a  characteristic 
colonial  weakness.  Virginians  would  speak  of  the 
ladies  of  Philadelphia  as  "homely,  hard  favored, 
and  sour";  dwellers  in  Charleston  would  deem 
themselves  vastly  superior  to  their  brethren  of 
North  Carolina;  the  old  settlers  of  Boston,  Phila- 
delphia, and  Charleston  had  little  liking  for  thfc 


COLONIAL  TRAVEL  235 

immigrant  Germans  and  Scotch-Irish,  were  glad 
to  get  them  out  of  the  tidewater  region  into  the 
country  beyond,  and  looked  upon  them  through- 
out the  colonial  period  as  inferior  types  of  men,  a 
"spurious  race  of  mortals,"  as  a  Virginian  called 
the  Scotch-Irish. 

Dislikes  such  as  these  cut  deeply  and  found 
ample  expression  at  all  times,  but  were  never 
more  freely  and  harshly  stated  than  in  the  years 
preceding  the  Revolution.  The  Stamp  Act  Con- 
gress, which  was  a  gathering  of  a  few  high-minded 
men,  was  no  real  test  of  the  situation.  The  Non- 
importation Movement,  as  the  first  organized 
effort  at  common  action  against  England  on  the 
part  of  the  colonists  as  a  whole  and  the  first  move- 
ment that  really  tested  the  temper  of  every  grade 
and  every  section,  made  manifest,  to  a  degree  un- 
known before,  the  apparently  hopeless  disaccord 
that  existed  among  the  colonists  everywhere  on 
the  eve  of  their  combined  revolt  from  the  mother 
country.  But  this  disagreement  was  more  the 
inevitable  accompaniment  of  the  growth  of  na- 
tional consciousness  on  the  part  of  the  American 
colonists  than  it  was  the  manifestation  of  perma- 
nent and  irreconcilable  differences  in  their  political, 
economic,  and  social  life.  To  the  early  colonists 


236  COLONIAL  FOLKWAYS 

must  be  given  the  credit  of  having  laid  a  broad 
and  stable  foundation  for  the  future  United  States 
of  America,  and  their  subsequent  history  has  been 
the  indisputable  record  of  a  growing  national  soli- 
darity. Even  the  Civil  War,  which  at  first  sight 
may  seem  conclusive  contradiction,  is  to  be  re- 
garded as  in  its  essence  the  inevitable  solution 
of  hitherto  discordant  elements  in  the  democracy 
which  had  their  beginnings  far  back  in  the  com- 
plex spiritual  and  social  inheritance  of  the  early 
colonial  generations. 

From  the  vantage  point  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury, with  its  manifold  legacy  from  the  past  and 
its  ample  promise  for  the  future,  it  has  been  in- 
teresting to  glance  backward  for  a  moment  upon 
colonial  times,  to  see  once  again  the  life  of  the 
people  in  all  its  energy,  simplicity,  and  vivid  color- 
ing, with  its  crude  and  boisterous  pleasures  and  its 
stern  and  uncompromising  beliefs.  Those  fore- 
fathers of  ours  faced  their  gigantic  tasks  bravely 
and  accomplished  them  sturdily,  because  they  had 
within  themselves  the  stuff  of  which  a  great  nation 
is  made.  Differences  among  the  colonists  there 
indubitably  were,  but  these,  after  all,  were  merely 
superficial  distinctions  of  ancestral  birth  and  train- 
ing, beyond  which  shone  the  same  common  vision 


COLONIAL  TRAVEL  237 

and  the  same  broad  and  permanent  ideals  of  free- 
dom, of  life,  opportunity,  and  worship.  To  the 
realization  of  these  ideals  the  colonial  folk  dedi- 
cated themselves  and  so  endured. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

THIS  volume  has  been  based  in  part  upon  memoranda 
of  the  writer  drawn  from  contemporary  manuscripts 
and  newspapers  and  in  part  upon  the  following  printed 
sources : 

S.  E.  Sewall,  Diary,  1679-1729,  in  the  Collections, 
Mass.  Hist.  Soc.,  ser.  v,  vols.  v-vn  (1878-1882);  Jour- 
nals of  the  Lives  and  Travels  of  Samuel  Bownas  and  John 
Richardson  (1759);  Report  of  the  Journey  of  Francis 
Louis  Michel,  1701-1702,  Fa.  Mag.,  vol.  xxiv,  (1916); 
T.  Chalkley,  Journal,  1703,  Works  (1790);  The  Jour- 
nals of  Madam  Knight  and  Rev.  Mr.  Buckingham  (Ed. 
Dwight,  1825);  Esther  Palmer  and  others,  Journal, 
1704-1705,  Journal  of  Friends  Hist.  Soc.,  vi,  38-40,  63- 
71,  133-139;  Account  of  the  Life  and  Travels  of  John 
Fothergill  (1753);  T.  Nairne,  Letter  from  South  Caro- 
lina, 1710  (2d  ed.,  1732);  A  Brief  Journal  of  the  Life, 
Travels,  and  Labours  of  Love  ...  of  Thomas  Wilson 
(1784) ;  J.  Dickinson,  Journal,  1714,  Friends  Library,  xii; 
H.  Jones,  Present  State  of  Virginia,  1724  (Sabin  reprint, 
1865);  J.  Hempstead,  Diary,  in  the  collections  of  the 
New  London  County  Historical  Society,  i  (1901);  Diary 
of  a  Voyage  from  Rotterdam  to  Philadelphia  in  1728,  Pa. 
Germ.  Soc.  Publ.,  xvm;  J.  Brickell,  Natural  History  of 
North  Carolina,  1737  (1911) ;  Writings  of  Colonel  William 
Byrd  ofWestover  (Bassett  ed.,  1901) ;  S.  Checkley,  Diary, 

239 


240  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

1735,  Publ.  Col.  Soc.  Mass.,  xn,  270-306;  R.  Chapman, 
Letters,  1739-1740,  William  and  Mary  Quarterly,  xxi; 
Abstract  of  the  Journal  of  E.  Peckover's  Travels,  1742- 
1743,  Friends  Hist.  Soc.,  I,  95-109;  J.  McSparran,  A 
Letter  Book  and  Abstract  of  our  Services,  1743-1751 
(1899);  W.  Logan,  Journal,  1745,  Pa.  Mag.,  xxxvi, 
1-16,  162-186;  J.  Emerson,  Diary,  1748-1749,  in 
Proceedings,  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.,  XLIV,  263-282;  G.  Fisher, 
Narrative,  1750,  William  and  Mary  Quarterly,  xvn,  147- 
175 ;  Extracts  from  Capt.  GoeMs  Journal,  1746-1750,  New 
England  Hist,  and  Gen.  Reg.,  xxiv,  50-63,  reprinted, 
with  additions  and  notes  by  Albert  H.  Hoyt  (1870); 
J.  Birket,  Some  Cursory  Remarks,  1750-1751  (1916); 
P.  Kalm,  Travels  into  North  America,  1748-1751  (1772); 
Diary  of  a  Journey  of  the  Moravians,  1753,  in  Travels  in 
the  American  Colonies  (N.  D.  Mereness,  ed.,  1916);  T. 
Thompson,  An  Account  of  Two  Missionary  Voyages 
(1758);  A.  Burnaby,  Travels  (Wilson  ed.,  1904);  R. 
Wolcott,  Memoir  Relating  to  Connecticut,  Collections, 
Conn.  Hist.  Soc.,  in,  pp.  325-336;  J.  Boucher,  Letters, 
1759-1772,  Md.  Mag.,  vu;  Lord  A.  Gordon,  Journal, 
1764-1765,  in  Travels  in  the  American  Colonies  (1916); 
An  Account  of  East  Florida  with  a  Journal,  Kept  by  J. 
Bartram  (1766);  W.  Eddis,  Letters,  1769-1777  (1792); 
P.  Webster,  Journal,  1765,  Publications,  Southern 
History  Association  (1898);  J.  Quincy,  Jr.,  Southern 
Journal,  1773,  Proceedings,  Mass.  Hist.  Soc.,  vol.  XLIX, 
June,  1916;  J.  Harrower,  Diary,  1773-1776,  Amer.  Hist. 
Rev.,  October,  1900;  P.  Fithian,  Journal  and  Letters, 
1767-1774  (1900);  J.  D.  Schoepf,  Travels  in  the  Con- 
federation, 1783-1784  (1911);  J.  F.  D.  Smyth,  A  Tour  in 
the  United  States  (1784) ;  and  various  diaries  in  the  His- 
torical Collections  of  the  Essex  Institute.  In  addition 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE  241 

many  scattered  documents,  letters,  wills,  inventories, 
invoices,  commercial  and  legal  records,  printed  in  the 
publications  of  historical  societies  and  elsewhere,  have 
been  used. 

It  is  impossible  to  give  here  any  adequate  bibliog- 
raphy of  the  secondary  works  dealing  with  the  various 
aspects  of  the  subject.  There  is  no  single  book  which 
covers  the  whole  field  nor  indeed  any  volume  which 
treats  fully  the  topics  presented  in  any  one  of  the  chap- 
ters. On  the  other  hand,  there  are  many  admirable 
books  which  present  with  great  fulness  of  detail  selected 
aspects  of  colonial  life  —  houses,  dress,  manners,  and 
customs  —  but  usually  with  the  intent  of  satisfying 
only  the  needs  of  the  general  reader.  There  are  also 
excellent  WTitings  of  a  more  technical  and  scholarly 
character  dealing  with  racial  elements,  land,  labor,  and 
education,  but,  except  Professor  Jernegan  in  his  forth- 
coming work  on  education  in  the  colonies,  no  one,  as  far 
as  I  know,  has  made  a  sustained  attempt  to  study  these 
topics  on  a  large  scale  with  an  eye  to  their  historical 
significance.  The  histories  of  individual  States  are  of 
very  little  value  in  this  connection,  and  local  histories, 
though  indispensable  to  the  student,  are  often  restricted 
in  scope  and  provincial  in  treatment.  Some  of  the  town 
and  county  histories  are,  however,  excellent,  but  the 
list  is  too  long  to  be  given  here. 

Deserving  of  notice  are  F.  B.  Dexter,  Estimates  of 
Population,  Proceedings,  American  Antiquarian  Society 
(1887),  reprinted  in  Dexter,  A  Selection  from  the  Miscel- 
laneous Historical  Papers  of  Fifty  Years  (1918),  pp.  153- 
178;  L.  J.  Fosdick,  French  Blood  in  America  (1906); 
C.  K.  Bolton,  Scotch  Irish  Pioneers  (1910);  H.  J.  Ford, 
The  Scotch  Irish  in  America  (1915);  A.  B.  Faust,  The 


242  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

German  Element  in  the  United  States  (1909);  L.  F.  Bit- 
tinger.  The  Germans  in  Colonial  Times  (1901) ;  Amandus 
Johnson,  Swedish  Elements  on  the  Delaware  (1911); 
J.  P.  Maclean,  An  Historical  Account  of  the  Settlements 
of  Scotch  Highlanders  in  America  (1900);  C.  P.  Gould, 
Land  System  and  Money  and  Transportation  in  Mary- 
land, Johns  Hopkins  University  Studies,  xxxi,  xxxm, 
(1913,  1915);  articles  by  Judge  Smith  on  towns  and 
baronies  in  South  Carolina,  in  the  South  Carolina  His- 
torical and  Genealogical  Magazine;  A.  D.  Mellick,  Story 
of  an  Old  Farm  (1889) ;  I.  N.  P.  Stokes,  The  Iconography  of 
Manhattan  Island  (1916);  Mrs.  M.  M.  P.  (N.)  Stanard, 
Colonial  Virginia,  its  People  and  Customs  (1917);  and 
C.  C.  Jones,  Dead  Towns  of  Georgia  (1878). 

Among  the  best  of  the  general  books  bearing  on  our 
subject  are  these:  H.  D.  Eberlein,  The  Architecture  of 
Colonial  America  (1915);  H.  D.  Eberlein  and  A.  Mc- 
Clure,  The  Practical  Book  of  Early  American  Arts  and 
Crafts  (1916);  H.  D.  Eberlein  and  H.  M.  Lippincott, 
The  Colonial  Homes  of  Philadelphia  and  its  Neighbor- 
hood (1912);  J.  M.  Hammond,  Colonial  Mansions 
of  Maryland  and  Delaware  (1914);  W.  J.  Mills,  His- 
toric Houses  of  New  Jersey  (1902);  Mrs.  A.  M.  (L.) 
Sioussat,  Old  Manors  in  the  Colony  of  Maryland 
(two  parts,  1911,  1913);  R.  A.  Lancaster,  Historic 
Virginia  Homes  and  Churches  (1915);  Colonial  Churches 
in  the  Original  Colony  of  Virginia  (1908);  A.  R.  H. 
Smith,  The  Dwelling  Houses  of  Charleston  (1917);  H. 
M.  Lippincott,  Early  Philadelphia  (1917);  Mrs.  A. 
M.  Earle,  Home  Life  in  Colonial  Days  (1898)  and  Child 
Life  in  Colonial  Days  (1899);  Mrs.  M.  W.  Goodwin, 
The  Colonial  Cavalier  (1894);  A.  S.  Huntington,  Under 
a  Colonial  Roof  Tree  (1891) ;  W.  R.  Bliss,  Colonial  Times 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE  243 

on  Buzzards  Bay  (1889);  J.  B.  Felt,  Customs  of  New 
England  (1853);  C.  S.  Phelps,  Rural  Life  in  Litchfield 
County  (1917);  P.  W.  Bidwell,  Rural  Economy  in  New 
England  (1916;  though  dealing  with  the  period  after 
1800,  this  work  is  very  suggestive  for  the  eighteenth 
century) ;  F.  H.  Bigelow,  Historic  Silver  of  the  Colonies 
and  its  Makers  (1917);  E.  McClellan,  Historic  Dress  in 
America  (1910);  A.  W.  Calhoun,  A  Social  History  of 
the  American  Family  (1917);  R.  M.  Tryon,  Household 
Manufactures  (1917);  E.  Field,  The  Colonial  Tavern 
(1897) ;  G.  O.  Seilhamer,  History  of  the  American  Theater 
(1891);  F.  S.  Child,  The  Colonial  Parson  and  A  Colonial 
Parish  (1896,  1911);  A.  E.  Bostwick,  The  American 
Public  Library  (1910);  W.  L.  Hubbard,  The  American 
History  and  Encyclopaedia  of  Music  (1908-10)  12  v.; 
L.  C.  Elson,  History  of  American  Music  (rev.  ed.,  1915); 
S.  Dunbar,  A  History  of  Travel  in  America  (1915);  and 
G.  R.  Putnam,  Lighthouses  and  Lightships  (1917).  A 
model  study  of  its  kind,  for  our  purpose,  is  S.  F.  Batch- 
elder,  Notes  on  Colonel  Henry  V assail,  Publications, 
Cambridge  Hist.  Soc.,  x,  5-85. 

Columbia  University  in  its  Contributions  to  Educa- 
tion, Teachers  College  Series,  has  issued  a  number  of 
valuable  monographs  on  phases  of  colonial  education 
and  apprenticeship.  Elsewhere  may  be  found  books 
and  monographs  on  negro  and  Indian  slavery  and  white 
servitude,  designed  rather  for  the  scholar  than  the  general 
reader.  Nothing  of  importance  has  been  written  on  the 
convict  system. 


INDEX 


Acadians  in  the  colonies,  17-18 

Adams,  John,  103 

Africa,    colonists   voyage   to,    5; 

slave  trade,  195-97 
African  church,  163 
Agriculture,   23,   25-26,   33,   68; 

see  also  Plantations 
Albany  (N.  Y.),  manors  near,  28; 

in    1760,    50;    turnpike,    216; 

routes    from    New    York    to, 

218 

Albemarle  (N.  C.),  19-20,  37 
Alexandria    (Va.),    horse   racing 

at,  117;  roads,  215,  220 
Allason,    William,    quoted,    126; 

cited,  224 
Allen,     Bennet,    rector     of     All 

Saints,       Frederick       County 

(Md.),     173 
Allen  family  in  New  Hampshire, 

24 
Amatis,  Paul,  starts  "Georgian 

Nursery,"  100 
Amusements,  97-98,  110-29 
Anglican  Church,  161,  163,  169- 

177 
Annapolis  (Md.),  Germans  come 

to,    19;    importance,    37,    38; 

description,    51-52;    Govern- 
ment    House,     59-60;     horse 

racing,     117;     theaters,     124; 

King  William's  School,    133- 

134;  lending  library,  157;  route 

from  Philadelphia  to,  219 
Apprentices,  188-90 
Architecture,     colonial     houses, 

45-69;  churches,  163-64,  169- 

170 


Austin,    George,    of    Charleston. 

142 
Austrian  Germans  in  Georgia,  17 

Bacon,  Rev.  Thomas,  175 
Balls  and  assemblies,  122 
Baltimore,  Frederick  Lord,  174 
Baltimore   (Md.),   37;   Germans 

in,  16;  roads,  215 
Baptists,  162 
Barrell,  William,  216 
Bath  (Maine),  87 
Bath    (N.  C.),    38,    53;    lending 

library,  157 

Beaufort  Town  (S.  C.),  43 
Beaver  Pond  (L.  I.),  horse  racing 

around,  117 
Beekman,  Gerard,  of  New  York, 

98,  107,  233 
Belcher,  Jonathan,  27 
Bell,  Alexander,  of  Virginia,  61 
Bell,    Robert,    of    Philadelphia, 

publisher,  155-56 
Beresford,  Mrs.,  member  of  Sir 

William  Draper's  party,  210 
Bergen  (N.  J.),  30 
Berkeley,    George,    gives    organ 

to  Trinity  Church,   Newport, 

177 
Bethlehem     (Penn.),     Moravian 

girls'  school  at,  143 
Beverley,  Robert,  86 
Beverley,  William,  35,  77-78,  80, 

91,  95,  102,  229 
Birket,  James,  of  Antigua,  209; 

cited,    8    (note),    99,    107-08, 

217,    219;    quoted,    230;    Cur- 
sory Remarks,  quoted,  55 


£4? 


246 


INDEX 


Bloomingdale  (N.  Y.),  Van  Cort- 
landt's  country  place  at,  32 

Blue  Ridge  Mountains,  19 

Books,  150-59 

Bordentown  (N.  J.),  30 

Boston,  in  1750,  8  (note),  48- 
49;  rum  distilled  in,  105;  Latin 
School,  132;  fire  of  1711,  160; 
slave  trade,  195,  197;  harbor 
lights,  213;  roads,  216 

Boucher,  Reverend  Jonathan, 
137,  138;  cited,  206 

Bragg,  James,  offers  to  teach 
navigation,  142 

Brainard,  David,  144 

Brainard,  John,  144 

Brattle,  Thomas,  of  Boston,  176 

Bray,  Rev.  Thomas,  commissary 
of  Maryland,  157,  175 

Breck,  Sarah,  wife  of  Dr.  Ben- 
jamin Gott,  86 

Brewster,  William,  of  Plymouth, 
library  of,  152 

Bridges,  226-28 

Bristol  (R.  I.),  216 

Brooklyn  (N.  Y.),  50 

Brown  University,  146 

Brunswick  (N.  C.),  20,  38,  53 

Building  materials,  see  Architec- 
ture 

Bulfinch,  Sarah,  of  Boston,  78- 
79 

Bulfinch,  Dr.  Thomas,  of  Boston, 
87,  147,  205 

Bulfinch,  Thomas,  son  of  Dr. 
Bulfinch,  147 

Burgwin,  Mrs.,  of  Cape  Fear, 
quoted,  174,  210 

Burlington  (N.  J.),  30,  31,  32,  51, 
136 

Burnaby,  Andrew,  describes 
marriage  custom,  88;  travels, 
209 

Burwell,  Nathaniel,  character- 
izes his  brother  Lewis,  137 

Byles,  Mather,  of  Boston,  167 

Byrd,  Maria,  92 

Byrd,  Ursula,  wife  of  Robert 
Beverley,  86 


Byrd,  William,  2d,  of  Virginia 

36,  185 
Byrd,  William,  3d,  of  Virginia 

70,  129,  139,  156,  209 

Calhoun,  J.  C.,  140  (note) 

Callister,  Henry,  indentured  serv- 
ant, 184 

Calvert,  Benjamin  Leonard,  lega- 
cy to  King  William's  School, 
134 

Calvinists  in  America,  161 

Cambridge  (Mass.),  Christ 
Church,  177 

Campbell,  Jean,  indentured  serv- 
ant, 184-85 

Cape  Fear  River  (N.  C.),  20-21, 
38-40,  47 

Card  playing,  110-12 

Carolinas,  see  North  Carolina, 
South  Carolina 

Carriages,  228-29 

Carroll,  Charles,  of  Maryland, 
119,  149,  206 

Carter,  Benjamin,  son  of  Council- 
man, 123 

Carter,  Councilman,  of  Virginia, 
35,  110,  123,  138,  156 

Carters  of  Virginia,  55 

Catesby,  Mark,  naturalist,  90 

Catholics  in  colonies,  162,  187 

Chalkley,  T.,  207 

Charleston  (S.  C.),  17,  21,  38, 
40,  43,  107;  in  1765,  54;  food, 
104;  brewing  in,  105;  theater, 
124;  education,  141,  142; 
Jews  in,  162;  slave  trade,  195, 
197-98;  slavery,  199;  light- 
house, 213;  road  from  Eden- 
ton  to,  222 

Checkley,  John,  of  Boston,  205 

Checkley,  S.,  Diary,  quoted,  164 
(note);  cited,  225 

Cherokee  Indians  and  the  Ger- 
mans, 22 

Chesapeake  Bay,  ships  on, 
211 

Childesbury  (S.  C.),  school  at 
141 


INDEX 


Children,  infant  mortality,  87; 
treatment  of,  91;  at  funerals, 
93 

Christmas  celebrations,  128 

Church  of  England  in  colonies, 
161,  163;  church  buildings, 
169-71;  clergymen,  171-75; 
music,  176-77 

Churches,  47,  163-64,  169-77; 
see  also  names  of  denomina- 
tions, Religion 

Claus,  Daniel,  and  Indian  lan- 
guage, 150 

Cock  fighting,  115—16 

Cocke,  Elizabeth,  90 

Coleman,  John,  87 

Colleges,  145-46 

Collins,  Stephen,  of  Philadel- 
phia, 81,  233 

Colonies,  1713-63,  3;  extent,  3- 
4;  commerce,  5;  population 
(1763),  6-7;  see  also  names  of 
colonies,  New  England 

Columbia  University,  146 

Commerce,  5,  149;  see  also 
England,  imports  from;  Slave 
trade 

Congregationalists  in  New  Eng- 
land, 161;  meetinghouses, 
163-64;  Sunday  observance, 
165;  ministers,  166-69;  music, 
176 

Connecticut,  149;  population, 
8;  Scotch-Irish  in,  9;  marriage 
customs,  88;  divorce,  89;  at- 
titude toward  amusements, 
117,  120;  horse  racing,  118; 
schools,  131;  roads,  216-17; 
see  also  Hartford,  New  Haven 

Connecticut  River,  boats  on, 
212 

Convicts  transported  from  Eng- 
land, 190-94 

Cooper  River  (S.  C.),  41,  42 

Copley,  J.  S.,  147,  206 

Courthouses,  61 

Covenanters,  books  of,  153 

Creek  Indians  interfere  with 
mails,  223 


Crokatt,   James,   of  Charleston 

68 
Cross  Creek  (Fayetteville,  N.  C.), 

21,  39,  148 

Custis,  Martha,  86,  95 
Cuthbert,  Joseph,  of  Savannah, 

92 
Cuyler,  Philip,  of  New  York,  81. 

149,  217 

Daingerfield,    Captain,    of    Vir- 
ginia, 138,  145 
Danes  in  New  Hampshire,  17 
Dartmouth  College,  146 
De  Lancey,  Oliver,  of  New  York, 

89,  139 
De  Lancey,  Susanna,  wife  of  Sir 

William  Draper,  89 
Delaware,  10,  13 
Dentistry,  84-85 
Divorce,  89 

Dixon,  Captain  Henry,  138 
Dorchester  (S.  C.),  43 
Douglas,  David,  and  theater  in 

America,  124 
Draper,    Sir    William,    marries 

Susanna    De     Lancey,       89; 

travels  in  America,  210 
Dress,  70-83 
Dry,  William,  plantation  of,  42- 

43 
Du    Bois,    Peter,    222;    quoted, 

53-54,  111 
Dugee,  performer   on   the   slack 

wire,  126 
Dulaney,  Daniel,  of  Annapolis, 

36;  brother  in  duel  with  Allen, 

173 

Dunkards,  14 
Dutch,    in    New    England,    10; 

houses,    56;    in    New    York, 

106;    schools,    135;    language, 

148 
Dutch   Reformed    Church,    161, 

163 

Earle,  Mrs.  A.  M.,  Child  Life  in 

Colonial  Days,  cited,  129 
Eaton,  Samuel,  library  of,  152 


INDEX 


Eaton  free  school,  137 

Eddis,  W.,  Letters,  cited,  55,  76, 
103 

Eden,  Charles,  Governor  of  North 
Carolina,  172 

Edenton  (N.  C.),  38,  53;  St. 
Paul's  Church,  172;  route  from 
Richmond  to,  220-21 

Education,  130-48,  189 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  87,  140,  144, 
168 

Edwards,  Richard,  of  Connecti- 
cut, 152 

Elizabeth  (N.  J.),  30,  50 

Ellerton,  James,  tutor,  139 

Elliott,  Grey,  library  of,  156 

England,  influence  on  colonial 
life,  3;  commerce  with,  5; 
imports  from,  76-82,  101,  105, 
113,  115,  118,  159,  229;  in- 
dentured servants  from,  182; 
convicts  from,  190-94;  colo- 
nists go  to,  204-05 

Episcopal,  Protestant,  see  Church 
of  England 

Equipages,  228-30 

Fairs,  120-22 

Falmouth  (Va.),  37;  roads,  215 

Families,  large,  87 

Faneuil  Hall,  Boston,  57 

Farm  implements,  68 

Farquharson,  Dr.,  of  Charleston, 

157 

Ferries,  225-26 
Fireworks,  127 

Fishing,  see  Hunting  and  fishing 
Fithian,      Philip,     tutor,      138; 

Diary,    cited,    57,    104,    123, 

172,232-33 
FitzHugh,  William,  of  Virginia, 

library  of,  152 
Flatland    Plains    (L.  1.).    horse 

racing  at,  117 
Food,  96-104 
Franklin,    Benjamin,    125;    and 

Library  Association,   158;  on 

transportation  of  felons,  191 
Frederick  (Md.),  36,  37 


Fredericksburg  (Va.),  37,  52; 
horse  racing  at,  117 

French,  as  colonists,  6-7,  9,  16, 
17-18,  148 

Friends,  see  Quakers 

Friends'  Public  School,  Phila- 
delphia, 134 

Funerals,  93-95 

Furniture,  63-64 

Galbraith,  Mrs.  Andrew,  86 

Gambling,  110-12 

Games,  110-12,  121,  129 

Garden,  Commissary,  of  South 
Carolina,  145 

Gardiner,  Hannah,  wife  of  Dr. 
McSparran,  87 

Gardner,  William,  indentured 
servant,  185 

Georgetown  (Ga.),  21,  40,  43 

Georgia,  2,  15,  34,  182;  foreign- 
ers in,  17;  architecture,  60; 
education,  136;  Library,  159 

Germans,  as  colonists,  6,  21-22, 
201,  234-35;  in  Pennsylvania, 
13-15,  31,  56,  106;  in  the 
South,  16,  17,  19;  education, 
134,  135;  language,  148;  reli- 
gion, 161-62;  as  indentured 
servants,  182,  183 

Germantown  (Penn.),  31 

Germany,  imports  from,  76-77 

Gibbern,  Parson,  of  Virginia,  172 

Godfrey,  Thomas,  The  Prince  of 
Parthia,  first  American  tragedy 
acted,  125 

Godfrey,  William,  125 

Goelet,  Captain,  123;  cited,  8 
(note) 

Goodburne,  John,  of  Virginia, 
library  of,  152 

Gordon,  Lord  Adam,  cited,  49, 
52,  104;  travels  through  colo- 
nies, 210,  216-17 

Gott,  Dr.  Benjamin,  86 

Grant,  James,  Governor  of 
Florida,  oranges  grown  by 
100 

Greeks  in  Georgia,  17 


INDEX 


249 


Green,  Rev.  Joseph,  cited,  100 
(note),  176  (note);  quoted, 
225  (note) 

Groton  (Conn.),  168 

Gunpowder  Day,  128 

Hadley,  John,  inventor  of  quad- 
rant, 125 

Hagerstown  (Md.),  37 

Halifax  (N.  C.),  38,  53 

Halifax,  (N.  S.),  lighthouse  at, 
213 

Hall,  Clement,  rector  at  Eden- 
ton,  172 

Hall,  Henry,  173 

Hallam,  Lewis,  124,  125,  126 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  tells  story 
of  Washington,  108 

Hamilton,  James,  Governor  of 
Pennsylvania,  158 

Hancock,  John,  108 

Harrison,  Peter,  first  professional 
architect  in  America,  57 

Harrower,  Benjamin,  tutor,  138, 
139,  145,  184;  cited,  103; 
Diary,  quoted,  183 

Hartford  (Conn.),  49-50,  132, 
212,  216 

Harvard   College,    145 

Harvey,  Mrs.  Eleanor,  fortune 
teller,  126 

Hatheway's  Tavern,  Charleston, 
duel  of  De  Lancey  and  Had- 
ley at,  109-10 

Hempstead,  Joshua,  of  New 
London,  179-80  (note) ;  Diary 
117  (note),  239 

Hempstead  (L.  I.),  horse  racing 
at,  117 

Henry,  Cape,  lighthouse  on,  213 

Hext,  Sarah,  wife  of  John  Rut- 
ledge,  86,  87 

Hildreth,  Joseph,  schoolmaster, 
136 

Hobby,  Judith,  wife  of  John 
Colemari,  87 

Holidays,  127-29 

Holland,  imports  from,  76 

Hopkins  grammar  schools,  132 


Horse  racing,  115-20 

Houses,  45-69 

Hoyt,     Epaphrus,     quoted,     97 

(note) 

Huddlestons,  schoolmasters,  136 
Hudson  River,  ships  on,  211 
Huguenots  as  colonists,  6-7,  9, 

16-17,  148 
Hume,    Robert,    of    Charleston, 

44,  93-94 

Hungary,  imports  from,  77 
Hunter,    Robert,    Governor    of 

Jamaica,  193 
Hunting     and     fishing,     97-98, 

113-15 
Hutchinson,  Thomas,  141;  cited, 

23,  27-28 

Indentured  servants,  88,  181- 
188 

India,  imports  from,  77 

Indians,  20,  22,  223;  in  New  Eng- 
land, 10;  Six  Nations  and 
New  York,  12;  trade  with,  105; 
education,  144;  interpreters, 
150 

Inness,  Colonel  James,  founds 
free  school,  141 

Ipswich  (Mass.),  216 

Ireland,  imports  from,  77 

Irish,  as  colonists,  17;  as  inden- 
tured servants,  150,  182 

Italians  as  colonists,  17 

Izard,  Ralph,  of  South  Carolina, 
travels  in  Europe,  206 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  123 

Jeffries,  Deborah,  letter  to  her 
father,  91 

Jennings,  Sam,  races  in  East 
New  Jersey,  117 

Jersey  City  (N.  J.),  50,  117 

Jewelry,  82 

Jews,  as  colonists,  6-7;  in  New- 
port, 9-10;  in  Virginia,  16; 
synagogues,  162 

Johnson,  Samuel,  140,  234 

Johnston,  Gabriel,  Governor  of 
North  Carolina,  38 


250 


INDEX 


Jones,  Elizabeth,  wife  of  Colonel 

Thomas  Jones,  205 
Jones,  Frederick,  222 
Jones,  Colonel  Thomas,  77,  90, 

91,    139,    199;    quoted,    125- 

126,  200 
Jones,  Dr.  Walter,  of  Virginia, 

148 

Kalm,  Peter,  209,  227 
Kean,  Thomas,  actor,  124 
Keef,  John,  indentured  servant, 

185 

Kinderhook  (N.  Y.),  216 
King  William's  School,  Annapo- 
lis, 133-34 

King's  College  (Columbia  Uni- 
versity), 146 
Knight,   Lowbridge,   of   Bristol, 

209 

Knight,  Mrs.  Sarah,  and  Con- 
necticut roads,  217 

Labor,  178-203 

Lancaster  (Penn.),  31;  horse 
racing  at,  117 

Land  tenure,  in  New  England, 
24,  26-28;  quitrents,  24-25; 
manors  and  estates,  28-33,  34; 
in  the  South,  33-44;  land 
speculation,  43-44 

Languages,  148-50 

Laurens,  Henry,  144,  200,  205, 
223-24;  cited,  54,  111;  ac- 
count of  slave  market,  198 

Laurens,  John,  44 

Lee,  Jonathan,  of  Salisbury,  167 

Leman,  Christian,  starts  fruit 
nursery  at  Germantown,  100 

Libraries,  152-54,  157-59;  see 
also  Literature 

Library  Association  of  Phila- 
delphia, 158 

Lindo,  Moses,  of  Charleston,  149 

Liquors,  104-09 

Literature,  150-59 

Lloyd,  Thomas,  of  Virginia,  185 

London,  John,  of  Wilmington, 
234 


Long    Island,    horse   racing   on, 

117;  fair  on,  121 
Ludwell,    Philip,    Governor    of 

North  Carolina,  37 
Lutherans,  161-62 

McDonnel,  Captain,  210 

McSparran,  Dr.  James,  of  Rhode 
Island,  87,  99,  145,  200,  240; 
Narragansett  church,  169 

Magazines,  154 

Mail  service,  221,  223 

Maine,  33;  Scotch-Irish  in,  8-9; 
schools,  131 

Manigault,  Mrs  ,  of  Charleston, 
and  the  theater,  125;  cited, 
235 

Manigault,  Peter,  157 

Manors  and  estates,  28-34;  see 
also  Land  tenure,  Plantations 

Marriages,  86-89 

Maryland,  2;  foreigners  in,  14- 
15,  18-19;  population,  15-16; 
estates,  34,  35;  stores,  62; 
food,  103;  horse  racing,  117, 
119;  education,  132-34;  reli- 
gion, 162,  171,  172-73;  inden- 
tured servants,  186;  negroes, 
195;  roads,  215,  219-20 

Massachusetts,  population,  8; 
Scotch-Irish  in,  8-9;  divorce, 
89;  hospitality,  103;  produc- 
tion of  rum,  106  (note);  horse 
racing,  117,  118;  education, 
131,  133;  negroes,  144,  202; 
see  also  New  England 

Mather,  Cotton,  141;  library  of, 
152-53 

Mathew,  William,  Governor  of 
the  Leeward  Islands,  187 

Maynadier,  Daniel,  rector  in 
Talbot  County  (Md.),  173 

Medicine,  92-93;  education  in, 
146-48,  189 

Mein,  John,  of  Boston,  book- 
seller, 157 

Mendes,  David,  of  Rhode  Is- 
land, 208 

Mennonites,  14 


INDEX 


251 


Meriden  (Conn.),  216 

Merrimac  River,  216 

Methodists,  153,  162 

Michel,  F.  L.,  quoted,  127 

Middletown  (Conn.),  49,  216 

Middletown  (N.  J.),  30 

Montagu,  Lord  Charles  Gre- 
ville,  Royal  Governor  of  South 
Carolina,  224 

Moore,  Maurice,  of  South  Caro- 
lina, 38 

Moore,  Roger,  of  South  Carolina, 
38 

Moravian  girls'  school,  Bethle- 
hem (Perm.),  143 

Moravians,  14,  1G,  153,  1G2 

Morgan,  Major  General  Daniel, 
111 

Morris,  Lewis,  of  East  Jersey, 
30 

Morris,  Robert,  of  Oxford  (Md.), 
184 

Morris,  Robert,  Philadelphia 
merchant,  13 

Morristown  (N.  J.),  horse  rac- 
ing at,  117 

Moseley,  Edward,  of  Edenton, 
library  of,  157 

Murray,  actor,  124 

Music,  122-23;  in  churches,  176- 
177;  of  negroes,  201 

Navigation,  211-13,  225-26; 
taught  in  New  York,  142 

Negroes,  in  colonies  (1763),  6; 
in  New  England,  6,  10;  dress, 
74-75;  education,  144;  lan- 
guage, 148-49,  150;  life  and 
treatment  of,  194-203 

Newark  (N.  J.),  30 

New  Bern  (N.  C.),  16,  38,  47, 
53,  59-60 

New  Brunswick  (N.  J.),  50 

Newcastle  (Del.),  51 

New  England,  in  colonial  period, 
2,  33;  topography,  7;  occupa- 
tions, 7-8,  83,  102;  character- 
istics of  people,  7-8,  27,  234; 
population.  8-10:  J*nd  owner- 


ship, 24,  26-28;  towns,  35- 
26;  houses  and  equipment,  06, 
64-65;  shops,  62;  drinking,  65, 
105-06,  107-08;  dress,  72-74; 
marriages,  86-88;  children, 
86,  87,  88,  91;  food,  98-99; 
hunting,  114;  colonial  fairs, 
120;  dancing,  122;  theater,  125, 
education,  130-32,  133;  re- 
ligion, 161,  163-64,  165-69, 
171;  roads,  215-16;  winter 
travel,  229-30;  view  of  South- 
erners, 232-33;  Southern  opin- 
ion of,  233-35 

New  Hampshire,  population,  8, 
117;  Scotch-Irish  in,  8-9; 
Allen  family,  24;  schools, 
131 

New  Haven  (Conn.),  132;  in 
1750,  49;  roads  from  Boston 
to,  216-17;  John  London  char- 
acterizes, 234 

New  Jersey,  2,  32,  117;  land 
ownership,  28,  29-30;  brandy 
manufactured  in,  107;  educa- 
tion, 136;  punishment  of  ne- 
groes, 202 

New  London  (Conn.),  in  1750, 
49;  harbor,  213 

Newmarket  (N.  H.),  horse  rac- 
ing at,  117 

Newport  (R.  L),  49,  105,  162, 
199;  slave  trade,  195,  197; 
harbor  light,  213 

New  Rochelle  (N.  Y.),  142 

New  York,  2;  compared  to  New 
England,  10;  topography,  11- 
12;  population,  12;  manors, 
28-29;  drinking,  103;  game 
protection,  114;  schools,  135- 
136,  142;  religion,  162;  punish- 
ment of  negroes,  202 

New  York  City,  compared  with 
Philadelphia,  11;  country  res- 
idences of  people  of,  31-32; 
early  stone  houses,  47;  in  1760. 
50;  theater,  124,  126;  Jews  in, 
162;  slave  trade,  135;  harbor, 
213 


INDEX 


Noel,  Garret,  of  New  York,  book- 
seller, 157 

Nomini  Hall,  home  of  Council- 
man Carter,  104,  110,  123, 
156 

Norfolk  (Va.),  37,  40,  52,  144, 
208 

North  Carolina,  2,  34;  population 
(1760),  15;  settlers,  16,  18; 
land  ownership,  25;  planta- 
tions, 37-38;  towns,  38;  in- 
dustries, 39;  houses,  60;  hunt- 
ing, 114;  horse  racing,  117- 
118;  education,  136;  religion, 
162;  negroes,  195,  202 

Ogle,  Samuel,  Governor  of  Mary- 
land, 92;  race  horses  of,  118 

Oneida  Indians,  Wheelock  and, 
144 

Organs  in  churches,  176-77 

Paulus  Hook  (Jersey  City), 
horse  racing  at,  117 

Peckover,  E.,  Quaker,  75-76, 
120,  207,  217 

Pelham,  Charles,  dancing  master, 
122 

Pelham,  Peter,  Jr.,  first  organist 
in  South,  177 

Pendarvis,  Joseph,  of  Charleston, 
203 

Penn  Charter  School,  134 

Pennsylvania,  2;  compared  with 
New  England,  10;  population, 
13-14;  manors  and  estates, 
29-30;  drinking,  106;  educa- 
tion, 134-35;  University  of, 
146;  religion,  162;  see  also 
Philadelphia 

Perry,  Micajah,  of  London,  letter 
to,  138 

Perth  Amboy  (N.  J.),  50-51; 
horse  racing  at,  117;  schools, 
136 

Peters,  Samuel,  cited,  120 

Philadelphia,  in  1750,  8  (note), 
51;  compared  with  New  York, 
11;  importance,  12-13;  coun- 


try seats  of  inhabitants  of,  31, 
32;  architecture,  51,  59;  stores, 
62;  horse  racing  near,  117; 
theaters,  124,  125;  College  and 
Academy  of  (University  of 
Pennsylvania),  146;  Jews  in, 
162;  roads,  215,  218-19 

Philipse  Manor,  Yonkers  (N.  Y  ), 
28 

Phillips,  Parson,  of  South  Church 
at  Andover,  166,  168-69 

Pierrepont,  Sarah,  wife  of  Jona- 
than Edwards,  86-87 

Pitkin,  William,  of  Connecticut, 
152 

Pittsylvania  Court  House  (Va.), 
church  at,  170-71 

Plantations,  33-35,  37-43; 
houses,  60;  soap  making, 
83-84;  distilleries,  106;  race 
courses,  118 

Pole,  Godfrey,  of  Virginia,  H 
brary  of,  156-57 

Pomfret  Association,  of  Charles- 
ton, 158;  of  Connecticut.  158; 
of  Lancaster,  158 

Pope  Day,  128 

Portress,  John,  schoolmaster,  139 

Portsmouth  (N.  H.),  48;  Pope 
Day  disturbance,  128;  light- 
house, 213;  post  road,  215 

Poyas,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  A.,  The 
Olden  Time  of  Carolina,  cited, 
41 

Pratt,  Betty,  125;  studies  of,  x40 

Pratt,  K.  W.,  studies  of,  13^-40 

Prentis,  William,  schoolmaster, 
137 

Presbyterianism,  162,  163 

Preston,  Diary,  quoted,  225 
(note) 

Prince,  William,  establishes 
fruit  nursery,  100 

Princeton  University,  146,  172 

Prisons,  61-62 

Protestant  Episcopal,  see  Church 
of  England 

Puritans,  and  dress,  75;  see  also 
New  England 


INDEX 


253 


Quakers,  75,  162,  209  (note);  in 
Pennsylvania,  12,  17;  and  the 
theater,  12,5;  education,  134- 
135;  books,  153;  attitude  to- 
ward New  England,  233 

Quincy,  Josiah,  218;  Southern 
Journal,  quoted,  74,  104,  203; 
cited,  108,  116,  122,  126,  201, 
232 

Quinehaug  River  (Conn.),  216 

Quitrents,  24-25 

Randal,  William,  of  Maryland, 
on  servants,  186 

Randolph,  Richard,  of  Virginia, 
36-37 

Rappahannock  River,  52,  212 

Religion,  161-77,  232 

Rhode  Island,  population,  8; 
Jews  in,  10;  horse  racing,  117, 
118;  College  of  (Brown  Uni- 
versity), 146;  religion,  162 

Richardson,  Ruth,  of  Maryland, 
85-86 

Richmond  (Va.),  founding,  36; 
roads,  215,  220 

Roads,  32-33,  214-23 

Rowe,  John,  of  Boston,  98,  113 

Royal  African  Company,  195, 196 

Russia,  imports  from,  77 

Rutherford,  John,  of  Cape  Fear, 
223 

Rutledge,  Dr.  John,  86 

Rye  (N.  H.),  fairs  at,  120 

St.  Cecilia  Society,  Charleston, 
123 

St.  John's  College,  Annapolis 
(Md.),  52,  134 

St.  Mary's,  private  school  in 
Carolina  County  (Va.),  137 

St.  Tammany  Day,  128 

Salem  (Mass.),  49;  Social  Li- 
brary, 159 

Salem  (N.  C.),  girls'  school,  143 

Salisbury  (Conn.),  167 

Sulzburgers  in  Georgia,  17 

Sanders,  Robert,  of  New  York, 
148 


Sandy  Hook  lighthouse,  213 

Sanitation,  54-55 

Savannah  (Ga.),  21,  40;  sanita^ 
tion,  54;  architecture,  60-61; 
education,  141,  142;  light- 
house, 213;  roads,  215,  223 

Schaw,  John,  quoted,  221 

Schoepf,  J.  D.,  cited,  222 

Schools,  see  Education 

Schwenkfelders,  14 

Scotch,  as  colonists,  6-7,  16,  39- 
40,  148;  as  indentured  serv- 
ants, 182 

Scotch- Irish,  as  colonists,  6,  9, 
13-14,  16,  19,  22,  53,  204,  235; 
religion,  162 

Scotland,  imports  from,  77 

Seabury,  Samuel,  rectory  at 
Hempstead,  58 

Servants,  see  Indentured  serv- 
ants, Negroes 

Sharpe,  Horatio,  Governor  of 
Maryland,  118, 173 

Shenandoah  Valley,  19 

Shetuckit  River,  216 

Ships  used  by  colonists,  211-12; 
see  also  Ferries,  Navigation 

Slave  trade,  195-98 

Slavery,  see  Negroes 

Sleighs,  230 

Slocum,  J.,  race  in  East  New 
Jersey,  117 

Smibert,  John,  painter,  57 

Smith,  Madam,  wife  of  second 
landgrave,  86,  92,  139 

Smith,  Provost,  of  the  College  of 
Philadelphia,  house  of,  59 

Smith,  Thomas,  Governor  of 
South  Carolina,  41 

Smith,  Thomas,  second  land- 
grave, son  of  Governor,  41, 
43 

Snuff,  112-13 

Social  Library,  Salem  (Mass.), 
159 

Society  for  the  Propagation  of 
the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts, 
135,  136,  144-45,  161,  171; 
Charity  school,  New  Yoi-k,  143 


254 


INDEX 


Sothell,  Seth,  of  North  Carolina, 
37 

South  Carolina,  2,  16-17;  popu- 
lation (1760),  15;  Tuscarora 
war,  20;  Germans  in,  21-22; 
plantations,  34,  40-43;  Fun- 
damental Constitutions,  40; 
towns,  43-44,  54-55;  archi- 
tecture, 60;  oranges  grown  in, 
99-100;  rum  made  in,  106; 
horse  racing,  117-18;  educa- 
tion, 136;  negroes,  195,  197, 
201,  202,  203;  see  also  Charles- 
ton 

Southwark,  Philadelphia,  first 
permanent  theater  in  America, 
125 

Spain,  poplin  from,  77 

Spicer,  Arthur,  of  Virginia,  law 
library  of,  152 

Spotswood,  Alexander,  Governor 
of  Virginia,  124 

Spotswood,  Alexander,  at  Eton, 
139 

Spotswood,  John,  at  Eton,  139 

Sprigs,  Elizabeth,  quoted,  187 

Springfield  (Mass.),  216 

Stamp  Act  Congress,  235 

Staten  Island,  horse  racing  on, 
117 

Stevens,  William,  indentured 
servant,  185 

Stockton,  Richard,  letter  to  his 
wife,  90-91 

Strawbridge,  Robert,  Methodist 
preacher,  162 

Swann,  Samuel,  of  North  Caro- 
lina, studies  in  England,  139 

Swiss,  as  colonists,  16,  17;  as 
indentured  servants,  182 

Syms  free  school,  137 

Taliaferro,  Jenny,  Jefferson  and, 

123 

Taverns,  109-10,  124 
Thanksgiving  Day,  128-29 
Theaters,  123-26 
Thompson,  T.,  missionary,  209, 

240 


Tibbs,    William,    rector    of    St. 

Paul's       parish,       Baltimore 

County  (Md.),  173 
Tilly,  George,  of  Boston,  44 
Tinoe,  Stephen,  teaches  dancing, 

186 

Tobacco,  use  of,  112-13 
Town  halls,  61 
Travel,  204-30 
Trenton  (N.  J.),  30,  51 
Tryon,     William,     Governor    of 

North     Carolina,     palace     at 

New  Bern,  47,  53,  59 
Tuscarora  Indians,  20,  144 

Urmston,    John,    of    Albemarle, 

172 

Usher,  John,  bookseller,  159 
Utrecht,  Treaty  of  (1713),  3 

Valk,  Jacob,  real  estate  dealer, 
44 

Van  Cortlandt,  Philip,  of  New 
York,  32,  106-07,  200 

Van  Dernberg's  Garden,  New 
York,  126 

Vassall,  Henry,  of  Cambridge. 
70,  103,  108,  111-12,  229 

Vassalls  of  Massachusetts,  55, 
111 

Venerable  Society,  see  Society 
for  the  Propagation  of  the 
Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts 

Virginia,  2,  18;  foreigners  in, 
14-15,  16;  population,  15: 
estates,  34-35;  towns,  36-37; 
stores,  62;  marriage,  88;  food, 
103;  rum  made  in,  106;  horse 
racing,  116,  118,  119;  fairs, 
121-22;  education,  136,  137; 
Quakers  in,  162;  indentured 
servants,  186,  188;  negroes, 
195,  201,  202;  slave  trade,  197; 
roads,  215;  equipages,  228, 
229;  New  Englanders'  opinion 
of,  232 

Warden,  John,  138 
Warwick  (Va.),  37 


INDEX 


255 


Washington,  George,  66,  108 

Watts,  Edmund,  of  Virginia,  94 

Weather,  224-25 

Webster,  Pelatiah,  describes 
Charleston,  54 

Weekly  Journal,  New  England, 
of  Boston,  prints  a  play,  125 

Weiser,  Conrad,  interpreter,  150 

Welsh  as  indentured  servants, 
150,  182 

Wesleyans,  153,  162 

West,  Benjamin,  travels  in  Eu- 
rope, 147 

West  Indies,  colonists  voyage  to, 
5,  204,  205;  imports  from, 
101-02,  106;  clergy,  171;  in- 
dentured servants,  186;  ne- 
groes, 195,  202 

Wheelock,  Eleazer,  missionary 
to  Indians,  144,  150 

Whitaker,  Benjamin,  of  Charles- 
ton, 44 

Whitefield,  George,  preacher, 
127,  209;  and  education  in 
the  South,  141 

Whitfield,  Henry,  erects  house 
in  Guilford,  47 

William  and  Mary  College,  52, 
144,  145 

Williams,  Eliphalet,  of  Glaston- 
bury,  168 

Williams,  Roger,  of  Rhode  Is- 
land, 143 


Williamsburg     (Va.),     37,     38; 

architecture,  52,  59;  fairs,  120, 

121;    theater,    124;    fireworks, 

127;     African     church,     163; 

Bruton     Church,     169,     177; 

slaves,  199 

Willtown  (S.  C.),  43-44 
Wilmington  (Del.),  51 
Wilmington  (N.  C.),  20,  39,  53, 

school,  141 

Winchester  (Va.),  37,  52-53 
Wine  Islands,  colonial  commerce 

with,  5 

Winslow,  Isaac,  marriage  of,  87 
Winyaw  River  (S.  C.),  43 
Wolcott,  Henry,  Jr.,  of  Windsor, 

143 
Wolcott,    Roger,     Governor    of 

Connecticut,     75,     132,     149, 

234 

Women,  occupations,  85-86 
Worcester  (Mass.),  49 
Wraxall,  Peter,  interpreter,  150 
Wren,  Sir  Christopher,  influence 

on  American  architecture,  163 

Yadkin  Valley,  19 
Yale  College,  49,  140,  145 
Yeomans     Hall,     mansion     on 
Cooper  River  (S.  C.),  41 

Zenger,  J.   P.,  and  freedom  of 
presg,  6 


THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SANTA  CRUZ 


This  book  is  due  on  the  last  DATE  stamped  below. 


FEB  5    1969 
FEB  1  9  1969 
FEB  1 9  REC'U 

APR  2    B69 


DEC  6    1972 
NOV2  7. 

'80 


100m-8,'65(F6282s8)2373 


E162.A57 


3  2106  00056  0174 


